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AN 

ESSAY ON THE STAGE ; 

WITH AN APPENDIX. 



&L*Cj£rr4-^J%~.s£~~r~'-. ^'I ' 




AN 



ESSAY 



©N THE 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 

OF 

THE STAGE 

ON MORALS AND HAPPINESS. 



BY JOHN STYLES. 



" Shall Truth be silent because Folly frowns ?" 

Young. 



SECOND EDITION, 

WITH AN APPENDIX. 

LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR MESSRS. WILLIAMS AND SMITH, 
STATIC NKR'S-COURT. 

JR. Tilling, Printer, Newport, Ule of Wight. 

1807. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. I. 

Page. 
A brief Enquiry into the Origin and Progress of 

the Stage - - - 1 

CHAR II. 

An Enquiry into the principal Causes which have 

contributed to the suceess ofeke^Stage 1 1 . 

CHAP. III. 

The Effects produced by the Stage on Morals and on 

Happiness - - - 20 

CHAP. IV. 

The Character of the Stage, as drawn by Historians, 

Philosophers, Legislators, and Dici)ies 3/ 

CHAP. V. 

Whether the Stage is in a State of moral Improve- 
ment considered - - 44 
A3 



VI CONTENTS. 

Page. 

CHAP. VI. 

Cursory Observations on the Writers for the Stage 9 
on the Actors, and the Audience, illustrative 
of its dangerous and immoral Tendency 51 

CHAP. VII. 

The Stage considered imth respect to its Influence in 

retarding the Progress of vital Christianity 7& 

CHAP. VIII. 

The Stage considered as an Amusement only 1Q7' 

Conclusion - - - - 115 

Appendix - - - - 123 



ERRATA. 

Page 17, for a verecundiiisque," read w vcrecundusque." 
Page 20, note, for " n© evidence of a tiling," read M no evi 

d«:ncr' of the utility of a thing." 

Pz?;e 49, for w Miss Eaille," read " Miss Baillie." 
Page 133, for " Mrs. Moore," read" Mrs. More." 
In two or three instances supply inverted commas at the end 

ef quotations. 



PREFACE. 



Whatever different opinions may be 
entertained, respecting the execution of 
the following Work, the Author hopes 
that, among the friends of morality and 
religion, there will be but one as to its 
object. It may, however, be justly 
asked, Why is the subject of the Theatre 
again agitated? Has it net of late espe- 
cially been amply discussed ? That this 
subject has excited considerable attention 
must be acknowledged ; but it surely w r ill 
not be seriously urged, that any work has 
been recently written, which, separate 
from personal alteration and local circum- 
stances, has any claim to general circtila- 



Vlll PREFACE, 

tion. In single sermons, and in a well; 
written pamphlet * f strictures on the im- 
morality and dangerous tendency of the 
Stage have appeared; but there has been 
no volume of modern publication which is 
professedly and exclusively devoted to the 
subject. 

A remark in the Eclectic Review, which 
declared it to be of no small practical 
interest, induced me to undertake the 
present Work : with what success I have 
fulfilled my task the public must decide. 
I offer no apology for inaccuracy ; the 
general cant of authors, by which they 
would disarm criticism : as I have always 
despised it, * so I disdain to employ it. 
Every man who prints should do his best : 
but if he think to attain perfection, he 
betrays a weakness which will ensure his 
disappointment. However, without sup- 
* Rev, Rowland Hall's " Warning to Professors." 



PREFACE. IX 

posing that his production is faultless, an 
author and his reader are not always 
agreed as to its merit, It is natural for 
the one to view his offspring with fond- 
ness, to array it in imaginary charms : while 
the other, feeling no kindred attachment, 
may contemplate it with frigid indifference, 
or expose its blemishes with cruel severity. 
Like the sickly infant, many a literary 
performance comes into the world to go 
out of it again ; and stays no longer than 
to gasp and die. Yet, surely no individual 
ever wrote for the press, who was himself 
persuaded, that obloquy would cover him 
with shame ; or contempt be the reward 
of his toil. 

In the present instance, whatever may 
be my fate, I have at least this conso- 
lation, that I have endeavoured to give 
" ardour to .virtue, and confidence to 
truth." In this I may have failed ; but, it 



X PREFACE. 

has been my object and my aim. Secure 
in the appobation of my own conscience, 
and of all good men, I court no other, 
patronage, and I deprecate no censure. 

Flattering compliments from a venal 
pen may soothe the pride of greatness, 
and there may be " golden reasons" for 
employing the honeyed accents of praise, 
to emblazon the generosity, and exalt the 
taste of some distinguished lord of our 
creation : but the man who will sacrifice 
his dignity to his interest, dishonours 
human nature, and has only to turn 
player to complete the degradation of 
his character. 

From the severity of hyper-criticism I 
have nothing to fear: a work possessing 
inherent merit will make its way in spite 
of opposition: but if it contain, in its 
own bosom, the seeds of dissolution, the 
kindness of friends will prolong its exist- 



PREFACE. XI 

ence but a little while, and it needs not 
the officious hand of criticism to dispatch 
it to an untimely grave. 



Fitzgerald's Cottage. West j # S # 

Cow es y Isle of Wight. 



ADVERTISEMENT 

TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The Author has availed himself in this edition 
of several important extracts from celebrated 
writers, in confirmation of the general design of 
his work. He has also subjoined an Appendix, in 
which the principles and observations contained in 
the Essay are defended, against the strictures of 
an article in the fifth volume of the Annual Review. 
By these additions, the book is considerably en- 
larged : — whether it is improved, is a question 
which only a judicious public can decide. At the 
hands of the Reviewers, as he has never received 
so the Author does not expect mercy. He has 
now attacked one of their tribe, and he doubts not 
that, to avenge the insult, they will literally regard 
a maxim, which they seldom forget, and which 
is indeed the secret of all good reviewing, " ca- 
lumniare for titer " 



AS 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 



CHAP, L 

A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN AND 
PROGRESS OF THE STAGE. 

JLHE history of the Theatre from its com- 
mencement to the present hour, furnishes us 
with a melancholy picture of human folly and 
degeneracy; and, if it be indeed the epitome of 
man, how hard must be his heart, who, while 
viewing his species through this medium, does 
not weep over human nature! 

But it is not the origin and progress of the 
Stage in this view that I now mean to trace; all 
I intend in this chapter, as introductory to the 
principal object of my essay, is to inquire — 
What gave rise to theatrical representation ; in 
what nations the Theatre has been supported 
and encouraged; and what has been its progress 
in ancient and modern times. 

B 



2 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

The Theatre, so injurious, so hostile to true 
religion, owes its existence to the false religions 
of Heathenism : its first inventors probably were 
a superstitious or an interested priesthood. 

The religion of the Heathens, as it was a 
religion of extravagance and falsehood, acquired 
and retained its influence by pomp and parade — 
by dazzling the imagination and inflaming the 
passions. To secure its votaries, it accom- 
modated itself to their appetites and depravity ; 
and the peace and welfare of society were 
infinitely more preserved by the civil law, than 
by the principles of piety, if indeed we may 
dignify the blind homage of the multitude to 
their execrable deities by this venerable name. 
But though their religion did little for the Hea- 
then world, either in promoting their virtue or 
their happiness, as a potent charm it held them 
in profound submission ; and perhaps the most 
powerful spring, the grand talisman, which so 
completely subdued and retained them, was the 
theatrical vehicle which conveyed to them the 
history of their absurd mythology. y 

The knowledge of their gods and of their 
divine exploits they received not in the dull 
uninteresting method of lecture and discourse; 
when they were instructed, the fascinating- 
charms of gesture and action rivetted the 
attention and captivated the soul. But the 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 3 

tendency of all human things to degeneracy 
produced what we now understand by the 
Drama. That which first was solely appropri- 
ated to the service of the gods, was soon divested 
of its exclusive honours, and prostituted to pur* 
poses the most ignoble and vile. The disgusting 
mime and pantomime attracted the attention 
of the multitude ; to these succeeded Comedy, 
more regular perhaps, but little superior: and 
at length Tragedy, stately in its manner, disci- 
plined in its form, enriched with sentiment, and 
adorned by the graces, gradually arose to its dis- 
tinguished eminence. 

Thus did the Theatre rear its head under the 
reign of Paganism in ancient times; and the 
modern history of its origin in Europe, among 
Christians, since the establishment of Christi- 
anity, traces it to religion. — In the earliest 
and best ages of the church, the Theatre was 
regarded with abhorrence by the Christian Fa- 
thers ; and it was thought a crime little less than 
apostasy, for a Christian to be a spectator at any 
of the public shows. But, when Christianity 
was transformed and united to a refined system 
of worldly policy, the degraded priesthood, after 
the example of their Pagan ancestors, in order to 
render their religion palatable, and also to coun- 
teract the influence of the Troubadours and 
Minstrels (of whom they became exceedingly 
B 2 



4 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

jealous), annexed to it Heathen pomp and cere- 
mony ; they actually made the events of sacred 
history the subjects of dramatic representation; 
and the mock disciples of the Holy Jesus were 
disciplined into a theatrical corps, who vainly 
attempted to conceal their avarice and hypocrisy 
under the transparent garb of grimace and show. 
Thus we read of the " holy brotherhood of the 
crucifixion," a tribe of vagrant robbers, who, like 
locusts, overran those countries which groaned 
beneath the Papal yoke. These were instru- 
mental in sowing the seeds of the Drama, which 
have issued in those fruits, fair in appearance, 
" like that w T hich grew in paradise," but which 
are in reality the produce of that grove, which 
deceived the arch deceiver, when with hate- 
fullest disrelish he 



. " writh'd his jaws, 



With soot and cinders fill'd." Milton. 

Among the most distinguished countries 
which supported and cherished the Stage, before 
the diffusion of Christianity, we may reckon 
Greece and Rome; indeed in this division we 
include the then civilized world. Athens claims 
the pre-eminence, and was the first city in which 
was established a regular theatre. The Athenian 
stage may be considered as the parent stock; 
from thence it branched off as far as Rome, till it 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. O 

became at last the elegant and favourite amuse- 
ment, wherever poetry was admired and luxury 
enjoyed. 

In modern times, Italy, France, Germany, and 
England have laboured to attain theatrical emi- 
nence — they have each produced favourite dra- 
matic writers, and each boasts the unrivalled 
excellence of its performers. 

The progress of the Stage among the ancients 
and moderns has been various. By progress, I 
do not mean its improvement as an art, but its 
gradual advancement in favour and importance 
in the estimation of mankind. At Athens it was 
always cherished with enthusiasm by the people, 
and a passion for the theatre became a national 
characteristic. The Athenians, seized with a 
theatrical phrensy, almost suspended the com- 
mon occupations of life, to enjoy the amuse- 
ments of the Stage. Dramatic writers among 
them were men of the highest consideration : — 
in their annals, legislators and statesmen appear 
a sort of inferior beings, when brought in com- 
petition with Aristophanes and Menander, with 
Euripides and Sophocles. 

Among the Romans, for a series of years, the 
dramatic art was little cultivated. At the time 
of its first introduction, the rigid features of the 
old Roman character were strongly visible; but 
as these wore away, the Stage advanced with 

B3 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

rapid progress, extended more widely its influ- 
ence, and became, as at Athens, the fashionable 
resort of the idle, the dissolute, and the gay. 

The history of the Stage is much more dis- 
tinctly marked in modern times, and its steps 
more easily traced. The Italians have been re- 
markable for their Dramatic taste, for the num- 
ber of their theatres, and the talents of their per- 
formers. The French have devoted themselves 
with enthusiasm to the pleasures of the stage; and 
the horrors of the revolution, instead of checking 
seemed to increase their rage for this destructive 
amusement. The number of public theatres at 
Paris is almost incredible. Germany has asto- 
nished its neighbours by the multitude, variety, 
and immorality of its dramatic compositions, the 
fatal poison of which has spread its baneful influ- 
ence through all Europe, and has even infected 
the New World. England is rapidly following 
the example of surrounding nations; and that she 
lias not exceeded them is only to be attributed 
to the spirit of her law r s, and the vigilance of her 
government. 

But in spite of these it is a melancholy fact, 
that a rage for theatrical pleasures awfully cha- 
racterizes our age and country. Not contented 
with the principal theatres in the metropolis — 
with the Opera, with Covent Garden, and Drury 
Lane, we have our summer theatres in abund« 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. i 

ance; and it is so contrived, that, for a consider- 
ble period, they are all open at the same time, 
In addition to these, we have our private theatri- 
cals, and our school exhibitions. The fashion- 
able world must have theatres of its own; and 
inspired with a laudable ambition, they mix 
with players that they may attain the proud dis- 
tinction of histrionic fame. Our very children are 
also instructed to consider the Stage as the prin- 
cipal source of amusement. — Boys and girlsmust 
be forced to an unnatural maturity in this hot-bed 
of the passions : they are not only taken to the 
theatre, but at school they must become actors 
and actresses. To excel in the art of playing 
is now considered a genteel accomplishment. 
And a theatrical spirit is not confined to the 
higher classes of society; in the lower walks 
of life, and particularly in the metropolis, I am 
informed, there are rooms hired on purpose for 
theatrical representation : — 

05 Whither the nrrwasVd artizan repairs,'' 

to tear a passion to tatters, to rave in Lear, or to 
whine in Romeo. In these private exhibitions, 
merchant's clerks, mechanics, and apprentices 
acquire habits fatal to the interests of sobriety 
and happiness. The imaginary prince and hero 
soon feels a sort of real dignity, which entirely 
unfits him for the discharge of those important 
B4 



8 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

duties' which are inseparable from his condition 
in life. 

Provincial theatres have also alarmingly in- 
creased. In almost every country town w r e have 
now a play-house, which is occasionally visited 
by some strolling company, who are generally 
the very offal of society, the vagrant apostles of 
indecency and immorality, whose business is to 
spread idleness and dissipation in every place 
where they are permitted to open their commis- 
sion. Poor, because they disdain the honourable 
occupations of life, they submit to any meanness, 
and mix with the very lowest of the people, that 
they may obtain suffrage and support. The law, 
indeed, considers them as vagabonds, and has laid 
upon them some restraint; but, unfortunately, it 
has left the exercise of this restraint to the dis- 
cretion of justices of the peace, when it ought 
to be invariable in its operation, and universal in 
its extent. The mean compliances and wretched 
expedients, to which these poor creatures resort 
to gain a livelihood of infamy, is thus humour- 
ously described by the satirist : — 



" The strolling tribe, a despicable race, 

Like wand'ring Arabs, shift from place to place ; 

Vagrants by law, to justice open laid, 

They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid ; 

And fawning, cringe, for wretched means of liie, 

To madam mayoress, or his worship's wife. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 9 

The mighty monarch, in. theatric sack, 

Carries his whole regalia at his back ; 

His royal consort heads the female hand. 

And leads the heir-apparent in her hand; 

The pannier' d ass creeps on with conscious pride. 

Bearing a future prince on either side : 

No choice musicians in this troop are found 

To varnish nonsense with the charms of sound ; 

No swords, no daggers, not one poisoned bowl - y 

No light'ning flashes here, no thunders roll ; 

No guards to swell the monarch's train are shown- 

The monarch here must be a host alone 5 

No solemn pomp, no slow processions here, 

No Amnion's entry, and no Juliet's bier/ 1 

With a very little variation, allowing for the 
change of times and manners, this description is 
strictly accurate now. And creatures so vulgar, 
so poor, so infamous, can do little injury to the 
well-educated part of the community; they are 
chiefly dangerous to the industrious poor, who, 
allured by their buffoonery, relinquish their em- 
ployments, and injure themselves and families by 
a frequent and expensive attendance on the 
ridiculous follies of a barn exhibition ; or w 7 hat 
is quite as disreputable, a country theatre. It 
is surprising that men of refinement and educa- 
tion should suffer their taste and judgment to be 
tortured by the bad acting, and worse speak- 
ing of provincial players; and that, without 
any motive, without even the chance of be; 
Bd 



10 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

pleased, they should lend their example to en- 
courage the lower orders of society to spend 
their money and their time at the expense of 
their morals., and their happiness. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 11 



CHAP. II. 

AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPAL CAUSES 
WHICH HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE SUC- 
CESS OF THE STAGE. 

jL O investigate the causes of things, to answer 
the why and wherefore, with which curiosity 
accosts us at every step, is the business of philo- 
sophy: but it is often difficult, and sometimes 
impossible, for the most comprehensive human 
intellect to seize the link which binds together 
cause and effect, principle and result. The 
subject which this chapter is intended to dis- 
cuss is happily unembarrassed, and within the 
ken of moderate intelligence. — The causes 
which have contributed, in ancient and mo- 
dern times, to raise the Stage to the eminence 
which it has ever maintained in all coun- 
tries remarkably civilized, are to be found — in 
the Dramatic Art itself, simply considered:- — in 
the subjects which have uniformly employed the 
Dramatic pen ; — in the character and moral state 
of the nations, by which the Drama has been 
welcomed and encouraged. 

The Dramatic Art, simply considered, will 



12 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

account, in some measure, for the influence of 
the Stage. 

That fiction, like a charm, affects the mind, 
touches the heart, and interests the passions, is 
a truth which all acknowledge, which all have 
felt. A tale whether founded on truth or not, 
which presents to our view an interesting group 
of fellow-beings struggling with difficulty, drink- 
ing of the cup of sorrow, will draw forth the 
sympathetic tear. The relation of ludicrous 
incidents will produce laughter; and the repre- 
sentation of virtue receiving its reward, after 
numberless misfortunes, excites very lively emo- 
tions of joy. By a fiction of the imagination 
we easily persuade ourselves that all which w r e 
read is actually passing before us: — the illusion 
is, for the time, complete; ideal presence makes 
us forget ourselves; — we are thrown into a kind 
of reverie, and feel precisely as if we were eye- 
witnesses of all that the w 7 riter describes. 

This is true of fiction in general ; but one 
peculiar species of it interests the feelings far 
more exquisitely, and rouses emotions and pas- 
sions in a much more sensible degree, and that 
is — fiction assuming a Dramatic form. Here, 
instead of being introduced to characters by 
description, instead of learning their actions or 
sufferings from another, we hear them tell their 
own tale-— we are made confidents of their most 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 13 

secret sentiments, and auditors and spectators 
of their resolutions, their enterprises, and the 
happy or unhappy events attending them. Thus 
it is evident, that in simple Dramatic writing 
there is something congenial with the frame and 
constitution of the human mind; and it affords 
in the hand of a master, when enlisted in the 
cause of virtue, a refined and exquisite satisfac- 
tion*. 

It will not then excite surprise, when we con- 
sider how wonderfully fiction, in this mode, is 
calculated to please, that the Stage should have 
so widely extended its influence; especially 
when, superadded to this, we consider the sub- 
jects which have uniformly employed the Dra- 
matic pen : and these have always been adapted 
to man as depraved; they have flattered the 
prejudices of the world, and have often gratified 
the worst dispositions of the heart. 

Ancient Tragedy is certainly the most un- 
exceptionable part of Dramatic history; but in 
this a Christian finds enough to make him mourn 
over the moral degradation of mankind. Pride, 
ambition, and revenge are prominent features in 

* I would here just observe, that Dramatic writing and the 
Theatre are things essentially different. A Theatre indeed 
necessarily supposes Dramatic writing ; hut there may be 
Dramatic writing without a Theatre :— the establishment of a 
Stage cannot be subservient to virtue, for reasons which I will 
hereafter assign. 



14 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

ancient tragedy ; but in this the heathens were 
consistent with themselves, and inculcated the 
same lessons at the theatre which they heard in 
their temples. The Drama was a sort of coad- 
jutor to their religion; for, depraved as they 
were, they would never have tolerated a theatre 
which disseminated principles hostile to the esta- 
blished religion ; this is an inconsistency pecu- 
liar to Christian countries, and Christian legis- 
latures. It was a part of Pagan worship, to 
deify heroes; and the Theatre was the stage on 
w r hich heroic actions were represented and ap- 
plauded. 

The aim of tragedy has been, in every age, 
to rouse, what some have called, the greater 
passions; that is, those passions which have been 
the fruitful source of almost all the misery which 
has deluged the world. Against the indulgence 
of these, the Pagan religions, as it has been re- 
marked, opposed no counteracting influence. It 
is not therefore at all surprising, that the Dra- 
matic art, employed on such subjects under such 
circumstances, should rapidly advance the Stage 
in public favour. But tragedy is chiefly suited 
to men of literature, and to those who in under- 
standing are raised above the common level. It 
is Comedy, with wit, humour, ridicule, and 
licentiousness in her train, which has contributed 
more than any thing to the wide-spreading influ- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 15 

ence of a theatrical passion among the middling 
and lower classes of society. Ancient Come- 
dy was made up of buffoonery and satire; it 
indulged in a liberty scarcely credible, in expos- 
ing to ridicule the most illustrious and powerful 
persons in the state : — it not only aimed its shafts 
at folly and knavery, but actually brought fools 
and knaves upon the Stage, and described them 
with so much truth and accuracy, that it was im- 
possible to misunderstand who the persons were 
that became the objects of poetical censure; and 
generals, magistrates, government, the very gods 
were abandoned to the poet's satirical vein. 
Thus, when comedy was represented, Envy en- 
joyed a malignant feast; fell Discontent received 
a delicious gratification, and 

" Grinn'd horribly a ghastly smile," 

while those who had no spleen to gratify, no 
hatred to indulge, laughed inconsiderately at a 
fellow-creature's expense. This sort of comedy 
was abominably licentious, and was filled with 
obscenities, " which denote (says Rollin) exces- 
sive libertinism in the spectators, and depra- 
vity in the poet." Formed of such materials, 
the Stage secured the approbation of a de- 
praved world:— what power could impede its 
success when it became a pander to the lusts of 
mankind ? 



16 ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 

Middle Comedy differed little from the 
former, except that the poet no longer dared to 
satirize the great. 

The New Comedy, established by A lexanJer, 
was confined to private life, and is the model 
which our modern writers profess to imitate: 
this too was composed of ridicule and licentious- 
ness. The moderns in this respect have followed 
their predecessors — "passibus aequis :" and as their 
professed object is, and must be, to please, they 
accommodate themselves to public opinion and 
to public taste ; they govern not the audience 
but the audience governs them. This naturally 
accounts for the progress which the Stage has 
made both in former and later times. — But there 
are other causes which have conspired with those 
already stated to produce this effect, and these 
are to be found in the character and moral state 
of those countries by which the Theatre has been 
encouraged. — In this view of the Subject, we 
may denominate the causes of the success and 
influence of the Stage to have been Civilization 
advanced beyond its zenith, Wealth, Luxury, 
and Idleness. 

In all ages we must look for the lovers and 
supporters of the Theatre, not among the nations 
unsophisticated by the abuses which generally 
accompany a high degree of civilization, but in 
those countries where wealth and extensive em- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 17 

pire have poured in upon the capital the 
abundance of luxury. 

There is a certain point in civilization, beyond 
which it contributes not to a nation's prosperity 
or happiness, and that point is, the utmost limit 
of refinement consistent with virtue. When once 
the appearance of virtue is substituted in place of 
the reality, it may be fairly said, the nation of 
which it is characteristic is on the decline ; and 
it is a remarkable fact, that the Theatre never 
becomes a general or a favourite amusement in 
any country till this is the case. When the 
sinews of Roman and Athenian virtue were the 
strongest, the people had neither time nor in- 
clination to regard the diversions of the Stage. — 
Horace, speaking of the Romans in reference to 
their indifference to the Theatre, assigns for their 
conduct the following reasons: 

K Quo sane populus numerabilis utpote parvus, 
Et frugi, castusque verecundiusque coibat." 

They were few, they were wise, they were religi- 
ous, and they were modest. White this was their 
character the Theatre made no progress among 
them ; and I am persuaded there is not a nation 
under heaven of which this sentence is descrip- 
tive, where the Stage would be tolerated, or could 
possibly arrive at celebrity and general patronage. 
A high degree of national virtue, an attention to 



18 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

the duties of social life, and the necessity of 
industry, have ever militated against this dan- 
gerous and destructive amusement. 

At first, so jealous were the Romans of its in- 
fluence, that it was found impossible to build 
among them a permanent Theatre: the most 
magnificent structures, which cost immense sums 
in the erection, were only permitted to stand for 
a few days. It was not till the Romans and 
Athenians became emasculated by wealth and 
by luxury, that they afforded countenance and 
support to che Stage. 

The Roman empire w r as rapidly on the decline 
when Nero himself became a buffoon and a 
comedian ; and while the Grecians were relaxing 
the nerves of their strength by these effeminate 
amusements for which their luxury and idleness 
gave them a taste, they were gradually unfolding 
the gates of their city to Philip of Macedon. 
Let glory intoxicate, and ease effeminate a 
people, — let wealth relax industry and furnish 
the refinements of luxury, — let religion be neg- 
lected and its sanctions despised,' — and the 
Theatre will rise to the stature of a colossus, and 
a nation will fall down and worship the idol of 
its own creation. 

These assertions require not arguments to 
enforce them ; standing on the base of truth 
I point to the column of Jiistory: there I see 



BSSA.Y ON THE STAGE. 19 

national virtue, sobriety, industry, manly vigour 
strongly contending every inch of ground with 
the abettors of the stage, till at last over- 
powered by wealth and its concomitant evils they 
are constrained to yield, 



20 ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 



CHAP. III. 

THE EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THE STAGE ON 
MORALS AND ON HAPPINESS. 

JDY their fruits ye shall know them," is 
equally applicable to things as to men; prac- 
tical utility is an argument which refutes 
a thousand objections against a theory or a 
system *• If it can be proved that great and im- 
portant advantages result from any thing, the 
propriety and expediency of which are called in 
question, nothing but the most incorrigible ob- 
stinacy will persevere in hostility and say, "Hurl 
it to the ground." 

But some things may be presented to our view 
in such a questionable shape, that the subtle 
casuist, availing himself of the ambiguity in 
which he has involved them, will confound truth 
and perplex the clearest reasoning on the sub- 
ject. — It is not always easy to decide the simple 
question of utility, though that decision might 
set an agitated subject for ever at rest. 

* That is, supposing the question does not involve in it the 
eternal principles of right : no evidence of a thing essentially 
evil will change its nature and constitute it good. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 21 

The effects of the Stage on morals and on 
happiness, if clearly pointed out, would, in my 
opinion, go far towards establishing the conclu- 
sion, that it is an evil of awful magnitude, the 
abolition of which the well-being of society impe- 
riously demands. But even on this ground the 
Drama is not destitute of advocates; there are 
not wanting theatrical enthusiasts, who with an 
overflowing zeal for the cause boldly aver, that 
the Stage has been a public blessing to the world, 
" That it must float on public favour, the mirror 
of a nation's virtue and the enlightened and po- 
lished school of a free people." 

But not one of its champions has advanced 
fairly and openly into the field of contest ; they 
have all intrenched themselves in some of those 
plausible representations with which the Dra- 
matic Art, abstractedly considered, has furnished 
them. The Stage cannot boast one literary ad- 
vocate who has viewed it impartially, who has 
taken its just features and traced its moral influ- 
ence. There is not one in fact who has defend- 
ed the Stage as it is; a creature of their own 
imagination, a Stage which never had existence 
but in the regions of fancy, many have indeed 
fervidly and successfully eulogized. They have 
given just such a view of the Theatre as Con- 
dorcet and Godwin in their wild and beautiful 
theories, have given of man, which possess 



■ 



Hi 



22 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

every thing to make them charming 1 — but 
truth. 

/we are not to reason a priori on what delight-\ 
ful effects a perfect theatre, " A baseless fabric 
of a vision/' might produce ; we have nothing to 
do with those who would lead us on to the ut- 
most verge of possibility, who refer us to some 
distant golden age when this Leopard will change 
his spots. The true foundation of all reasoning is t 
knowledge. The great question is, What has 
the real not an imaginary Theatre actually pro- 
duced? And the point which is now before us, 
is not what talents have been called forth by the 
Drama, what improvement literature and taste 
have derived from it, but what has been its in- I 
fluence on the morals and the happiness of/ 
mankind. 

I am willing to allow the Stage all that its 
warmest friends are disposed to claim on the 
score of literary refinement and taste. But I am 
by no means persuaded that these effects might 
not have been otherwise produced. It is, strictly 
speaking, but one branch of literature that has 
received peculiar advantage from the Theatre ; 
and perhaps I may be accused of vandalism, 
when I declare, that if literary taste and the 
fine arts connected with the Stage must be pur- 
chased at the enormous expence of morals and 
of happiness, it is our duty to preserve our virtue 



#** 



** 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 23 

let the fate of polite literature be what it 

I am far from asserting that immorality and* 
Dramatic writing are necessarily connected; 
they clearly are not; for Dramatic writing is 
perfectly distinct from virtue and from vice, and 
may be made subservient to either; but I main- 
tain, that immorality and the Theatre have 
hitherto been inseparable,) And I fear not con- 
tradiction when I assert, that since the promul- 
gation and establishment of Christianity, the 
Stage has never been for three months together, 
what a wise Legislature, concerned for the morals 
of the people, and consequently for their felicity, 
could consistently tolerate : and from what is 
known of human nature, there is no probability 
of a change. Indeed from the nature and cir- 
cumstances of a Theatre, which will afterwards 
be considered, a radical improvement in this 
respect is impossible. It is fair in arguing against 
what we disapprove, to state those facts which 
make the scale of reason preponderate in our 
favour. 

As a prosperous Stage is one of the effects of 
Luxury, Idleness, and Dissipation, it is marked 
with the features of its family, and to render their 
progress more alarming, it lends to its progeni- 
tors all its power. Aided by the Theatre, these 
destroyers of virtue become more and more 



24 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

successful in the work of death. In the Stage 
they have a powerful auxiliary, more particularly 
i useful in enlarging the boundaries of their influ- 
ence. The effeminacy of luxury, its idleness and 
its vice, are at first confined to the wealthy and 
the great : and while the body of the people re- 
main uncontaminated, the cause of virtue, com- 
paratively speaking, suffers little. The fruitful 
parent of vice and misery is that which relaxes 
the nerve of industry ; which transforms the citi- 
zen, the tradesman, and the mechanic, into the 
man of fashion, the lounger, and the libertine. 
While dissipation moves in the narrow circle of 
the exalted few, it is but an excrescence on the 
tody — it affects not the constitution; but when 
it widens its sphere, and embraces alike the poor 
and the rich, with the intermediate space be- 
tween, it is as if the whole mass of blood was 
infected with deadly poison. And that channel, 
through which the higher classes of society pour 
forth their contaminating influence upon the 
humbler walks of life, whatever it be, is perhaps 
of all the evils that ever entered the world the 
most baneful and destructive; — and I feel no 
hesitation in declaring, that this evil is the Stage. 
One fair way of judging whether a Theatre be 
beneficial or injurious, is to suppose that it has 
its full influence, and produces all the effect 
which its principles are calculated to produce, 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. *.525 

without any counteracting influence from Chris- 
tianity. I will suppose a city, where the natu- 
ral depravity of the human heart grows with no 
more than common luxuriance, when aided by 
companionship and example. — Let us conjec- 
ture that it is entirely destitute of every thing- 
like religion, but what man is able to disco^ 
ver by his conscience, and the light of reason. 
Imagine, if you can, that some benevolent com- 
pany of players, touched with compassion at the 
awful ignorance and wickedness of the inhabi- 
tants of this city, should kindly undertake to 
instruct them by amusement and theatrical re-* 
presentation. — And to complete the fiction, sup- 
pose they were to take with them a goodly num- 
ber of the most popular dramatic pieces which 
have received the sanction and applause of a 
Christian audience; do you think that, after a 
fair trial, the inhabitants would be the better, or 
the w T orse for their instruction? Xow I main- 
tain, that a theatre much more pure than any 
Europe ever knew, was established in a city ex- 
actly circumstanced as the imaginary one which 
I have described; and the result was increasing 
depravity, immoral refinement, effeminacy, and 
destruction. The city to which I refer was 
Athens, and the theatre that which Wit and 
Genius did their utmost to support, and which 
received the homage of every Muse. 

C 



20 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

It is a remarkable fact, which the advocates of 
toe Theatre, on the principle that it is the friend 
of morals, must account for if they can, that the 
Stage has flourished most in the most corrupt 
and depraved state of society. How comes it to 
pass, that in proportion as sound morality, in- 
dustry, and religion, advance their influence, that 
the Theatre is deserted and neglected, and that 
it grows in favour in the same ratio as virtue and 
religion decline? How has it happened too, if 
the Stage be the school of virtue, that the most 
dissolute and abandoned of mankind are its pas- 
sionate admirers, and warmest advocates; that 
those who trample on every moral obligation, 
and despise the sanctions of religion, have, in 
every age, afforded the Theatre their most 
cordial support? " 'Tis strange, 'tis passing 
strange," that those whose lives contradict almost 
every injunction in the Decalogue should be 
charmed with the beauty and excellence of vir- 
tue on the Stage. But the truth is, the Stage is 
the nursery of depravity, and the accomplice of 
crime. The virtue (falsely so called) which it 
inculcates, is vice softened and refined, or it 
would not receive the voluntary suffrage of every 
pupil of iniquity. 

That the Theatre has widened the circle of 
dissipation — that it has given a mortal stab to 
the virtue and happiness of youth of both sexes 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. £'7 

in the higher and middling classes of society, are 
facts too notorious to be denied, and too awful not 
to be deplored by every friend of human nature. 

Dissipation and extravagance are fruitful 
sources of wretchedness, and are often the fore- 
runners of every vice : to the love of pleasure 
the grave and necessary pursuits of life are made 
to yield, and expense is a trivial consideration 
when cupidity is to be gratified. But money is 
not always within the grasp — it is not always 
ready to administer to every rising wish; this ge- 
nerates gloomy discontent, or something worse. 
It not unfrequently leads to gambling among* 
the higher, and to more unlicensed robbery 
among the lower classes of society — examples of 
w 7 hich are often exhibited on the Stage. And if 
the hero be a man of spirit, his reputation suffers 
by such expedients but little diminution. 

Another dreadful effect which the Theatre 
produces on morals is, that its votaries always 
consider reason, and the dictates of virtue, to 
be subordinate to Feeling. Feeling is para- 
mount, and it is every thing; and because it is 
natural, it must therefore be right: thus revenge 
is often preferred to forgiveness, and the gratifi- 
cation of the moment to the self-denial of virtue.. 
The school' which teaches such a doctrine as 
this, can never surely be recommended as 
friendly to happiness, or to society. 
C2 



28 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

It has indeed been urged, in defence of the 
Theatre, that it cherishes in the bosom those 
feelings which are called the charities of human 
life. But the power of fiction to seize on the 
affections, awakens- a kind of bastard sensibility 
— a sensibility which leaves the heart a stranger 
to compassion — a sensibility which led Sterne to 
weep over a dead ass, while he could suffer a 
living mother to mourn in poverty without 
either sympathy or assistance. 

A superficial glance around a Theatre, during 
the representation of some moving spectacle, 
might induce the reflection that the audience 
was composed of the most amiable and com- 
passionate beings in the world. Who that had 
not known him but would have thought the 
tyrant a mild and benevolent prince, when he 
melted into tears at the public theatre at Athens : 
alas! he was the most cruel and barbarous of 
men. Feeling is an indifferent substitute for prin- 
ciple, — it is capricious and uncertain ; and in 
this view contributes nothing to our own, and 
but little to the happiness of others. 

At the Theatre likewise those romantic notions 
are imbibed which disorder the imagination, 
which give a high and fictitious colouring to 
human life, and which lay the foundation for 
perpetual error and incessant mistakes, From 
the Theatre many a hapless young man has re- 



ESSAY OX THE STAGE, £9 

turned to the world a Hero of romance, a wou'd- 
be Poet, a brainless Wit, or a fancied Roscius. 
Bloated with imaginary greatness, he arraigns 
the Providence which would depress him in the 
world, and spurns the advice which, to make him 
happy, would confine him to his original station. 
The spirit of prophecy is not necessary to foretel 
that the future lot of such an one must be misery. 
I have instances before me, the recollection of 
which at this moment pains my heart, of the 
horribly transforming influence of the Theatre. 
It is there that vice steals upon the innocent and 
unsuspecting in the garb of pleasure. And some 
I have known who on visiting the Playhouse 
experienced first a change of manners and then 
of morals, till the character was depraved and 
virtue annihilated. These are not solitary in- 
stances; nor was the effect accidental. — it is 
what every rational being would naturally ex- 
pect to follow, on the supposition that the Stage 
has any influence in the formation of character. 
For I am afraid what Dr. Johnson said of the 
plays of Congreve, is too applicable to the 
greater part of the most popular dramatic 
pieces of the present day — " It is acknow- 
ledged with universal conviction, that the 
perusal of his works will make no man better, 
and that their ultimate effect is to represent 
pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax 
C S 



Oii ESSAY OK THE STAGE, 

e obligations by which life ought to be 
regulated. " 

I would by no means be thought to institute a 
comparison between the plays of Congreve and 
those of our modern writers. Their scenes are 
not so luscious, nor is their language so indelicate 
and unchaste; yet in general their tendency is 
the same ; and I conceive the present age is 
likely to sustain a far greater injury from its 
theatrical productions, than even that for which 
Congreve wrote. If our modern plays like his 
were openly immodest and licentious, they 
would then carry their own antidote Avith them, 
and the sober part of mankind would remove 
at a convenient distance from their contami- 
nating influence. But as our writers for the 
stage now manage it, " Vice loses half its evil 
by losing all its grossness," and consequently is 
more dangerous than the barefaced obscenities 
of Dryden and his contemporary already men- 
tioned. A double entendre and an arch 
equivoque are well understood and applied 
by a licentious audience; and the buzz ox 
approbation which is heard through the whole 
assembly furnishes abundant proof that the 
effect is not lost. Modest impudence in a 
female form will indeed pretend to blush behind 
a fan, but with all her coyness the artful nymph 
is rather gratified than offended. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 31 

I have no doubt in addition to the evils already 
traced to the Theatre, that the alarming pro- 
gress of 'Suicide, " our Island's shame," may be 
ascribed in a great measure to its influence; for 
there it is often represented, and in such a manner 
as to excite the admiration or pity of the audience. 
The case of Eustace Budgell, one of the writers 
iu the Spectator, is strikingly in point, and proves 
the dangerous influence of what is reckoned one 
of the best moral plays in the English language. 
Having involved himself by extravagance in the 
deepest distress, he plunged into the Thames as 
the oblivion of sorrow, leaving on his bureau 
this justification of the fatal deed, " what Cato 
did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." 
That which is in its own nature evil, cannot by 
its legitimate influence be productive of good: 
that which has an immoral tendency will never 
promote morality. 

It cannot indeed be denied that some dramatic 
pieces have been received with approbation t 
which abound in just sentiments, and which 
contain some good moral principles; but their 
success must be attributed to other causes than 
their moral tendency; for had they been filled 
with the most obnoxious general sentiments, 
their dramatic beauty and their construction for 
stage effect, would have rendered them quite as 
popular. The talents of the writer and not his 

C4 



oZ ESSAY on the stage, 

principles have secured him applause. This 1* 
not an unfair conclusion, because the same 
audience has bestowed praise on productions the 
most immoral and licentious, on account of the 
charms of poetry with which they were enriched, 
avid their power to interest the passions. 

But if it could even be established, that during 
a century as many as fifty moral plays have 
received the sanction of the public, this would 
not affect the general character of the Stage ; and 
I believe it would be impossible, w r ere we to 
consult the literary and dramatic annals of the last 
hundred years, to find ten plays that a Christian 
ought to recommend, or the leading heroes 
of which any man should consider as models 
to be observed, or as examples to be followed. 

There is one view of the moral influence of 
the Theatre which I have not taken, and with 
which I shall conclude this chapter, and that is, 
its influence on Female Character. 

The importance of woman in society has been 
universally felt and acknowledged; her influence 
is potent ; to her we are indebted for social 
comfort and domestic joy. Woman, lovely 
woman, is the sovereign of our happiness ; and 
the virtue of the human race is committed to her 
hands. She is the depository and the guardian 
of the generation which is to adorn or disgrace 
a future age ; and on her qualifications to 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 33 

discharge the important trust, their destiny in 
a great measure depends. It is the glory 
of civilized man to pay this homage to the 
sex ; and who would not with indignation 
oppose that which would degrade woman from 
her distinguished, important eminence? That 
which would rob her of the peculiar features of 
her character, which would unfit her for the per- 
formance of the various duties which belong to 
her station and her sex, is a dreadful evil which 
policy, interest, and every thing which can 
operate as a motive upon the human breast call 
upon us to detest. Preserve her native modesty,- — 
let her heart confine its wishes and its affections 
within the circle of intellectual improvement — 
domestic duties and domestic pleasures, and 
woman becomes what her Creator designed, 
" a help meet for man," the gentle friend of his 
youth; the kind instructor as well as the mother 
of his children; his counsellor in difficulties, the 
soother of his sorrows in affliction ; and I may 
almost add, the arbitress of his fate. But trans- 
form her character: let modesty, the guardian 
of every female virtue, retire; let the averted 
eye which turns disgusted from the remotest 
approach of evil grow confident; let that delicacy 
of sentiment which feels a" stain like a wound" 
give place to fashionable apathy; let the love of 
home and a taste for the sweetly interesting em- 
C5 



34 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

ployments of the domestic scene be exchanged 
for the pursuits of theatrical entertainment, and 
the vagrant disposition of a stylish belle, and 
the picture is reversed ; the female is degraded, 
and society has lost its most powerful, captivating 
charm ; man is comfortless and alone; — he must 
go abroad for pleasure — miserable wanderer! his 
children clasp the knees of a menial stranger — 
home has no attractions— he has no kindred 
heart to partake of his joys and sorrows; the 
world is before him ; it allures and intoxicates, 
but it does not make him happy. Where is the 
enemy that has done this? What has dashed 
the cup of domestic enjoyment to the ground? — 
The Stage. Let the theatrical passion once be 
cherished in a female bosom, and farewel* 
modesty: the taste is vitiated and domestic 
happiness is gone. 

" It is at the Theatre (says the Abbe Clement) 
our daughters are taught the art of skilfully 
conducting an intrigue, of concealing from their* 
parents the secrets of their hearts, of cherishing < 
a passion condemned by propriety and morality." 
If a daughter of mine could visit the Theatre, 
and tell me that she could view with pleasure : 
the scenes in Pizarro, the Stranger, the Virgin 
of the Sun, John Bull, and twenty other popular ; 
dramatic pieces I could name, I should clasp \ 
my lost child to my bosom, weep at the thought 1 " 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 35 

of innocence for ever fled, and mourn the day 
that made me a parent: — her soul is polluted, 
and that is the essence of prostitution ; the 
dignity of virtue is lost — and what remains ? If 
the mother of my children could spend her 
evenings at the Theatre, and be gratified with 
what is passing there, she would lose my con- 
fidence and forfeit my regard ; for I should be 
sure she had lost the best qualifications of a wife. 
There is a charm in native modesty, which 
when wanting only in appearance, renders the 
conversation even of a sensible woman insipid 
and disgusting. But I know not how the ap- 
pearance of modesty can be retained, when the 
eye must be accustomed to scenes which inge- 
nuous youth of the other sex can scarcely behold 
without horror. The world may call a woman 
virtuous, who with a countenance of brass can 
sit unmoved when heaven is insulted by profane- 
ness, and the audience by oaths ; when modesty- 
is trampled on, and licentiousness indulged; — 
and this may be the current virtue of a depraved ^ 
age : but give me the innocence which shrinks 
at the touch of vice. When the outworks of 
modesty are demolished, the conquest of the 
citadel is comparatively easy. The Stage has 
contributed a dreadful share to the immodesty of 
dress and manners which characterize the fashion- 
able females of the day. It is there that Rustic 

C 6 



36 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

Simplicity has learnt to cast off its decent robe, 
and Rural Innocence has changed its modest 
blush, its retiring mien, for the theatrical stare, 
and the imposing, dauntless front of the actress. 
Upon the whole I am persuaded, that the 
Theatre is a principal source from whence have 
flowed those contaminating streams, which have 
had so fatal an influence in depraving the female 
character in the higher classes of society. It is 
to this I fear we may trace the adulteries and 
the crimes of fashionable life ; it is this too which 
has rendered the helpless female the easy prey of 
a false seducer. When once a woman is brought 
to consider the delirium of a heart abandoned to 
the disorder of the senses, to be virtue, and the 
indulgence of vitiated feelings, to be happiness,-— 
persuasion may complete her ruin, and passion . 
may be the harbinger of infamy. It is on the 
Stage " that passion is identified with virtue :" 
teach a female this, and where is the safeguard 
of honour ; where the security of happiness ? It 
is gone — it is fled for ever. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 37 



CHAP. IV. 

THE CHARACTER OF THE STAGE AS BRAWN 
BY HISTORIANS, PHILOSOPHERS, LEGISLA- 
TORS, AND DIVINES. 



'Ould I summon into one interesting group 
the venerable men who have, in every age, in- 
structed and astonished the world by their wis- 
dom and their virtue, and collect their aggre- 
gate opinion on the character and moral influ- 
ence of the Stage, the decision, were it uniform, 
would demand some consideration; and from it 
Presumption itself would not venture to appeal. 
But this is not practicable, nor is it necessary; 
their sentiments on this subject are upon record. 
There is scarcely a distinguished name among 
the philosophers, legislators, and moralists of 
the world but is hostile to the Theatre; and they 
have left, by their historians, or in their writings, 
an imperishable monument inscribed with their 
protest against the Stage, 

" It is an invariable fact in the history of all 
nations (says Clement), a fact which has been 
carefully recorded by historians, that the refine- 
ment and increase of public spectacles has essen- 



53 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

tially contributed to that universal depravation 
of public and private morality, which has almost 
always been either the secret or obvious cause 
of the fall of empires." " What caused the ruin 
of the flourishing republic of Greece? Ask the 
wisest of her philosophers, ask the most elo- 
quent of her orators — the games, the Theatres; 
these excited a fondness for the magnificent and 
marvellous, and a disgust for simplicity and pro- 
priety. It was complained that the magistrates 
and people neglected the care of public affairs; 
the young men abandoned their salutary exer- 
cises to frequent the Theatres; the indolence 
and effeminacy of one sex produced delicacy and 
morbid sensibility in the other, and the disso- 
luteness of Greece became a proverb in his»- 
tory*." 

Rome was long virtuous; and she remained 
so while the Theatre was unknown. Augustine 
beautifully remarks, that " Theatricas artes vir- 
tus Romana non noverat." " But (observes a 
Roman author) when conquered Greece taught 
her this fatal art — she taught her, at the same : 
time, all her vices. The wisest of the Roma .s 
foresaw this: he had strenuously opposed the 
establishment of a regular Theatre, asserting, 
that it would be to Rome a more dangerous 
Carthage than that which they had just de- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 39 

stroyed. He then succeeded in his opposition, 
but unfortunately he succeeded but for a short 
time; and the event showed that Cato was not 
deceived*.'' Livy unites his testimony with that 
of Justin, and condemns the Theatre. Philoso- 
phers follow in the same train: — " Plays (says 
Plato) raise the passions, and pervert the use of 
them, and are of course dangerous to morality." 
Again :. " The diversions of the Stage are dan- 
gerous to temper and sobriety; they swell anger 
and desire too much. Tragedy is apt to make 
men boisterous, and comedy buffoons. Those 
passions are cherished Which ought to be check- 
ed : Virtue loses ground, and Reason grows 
precarious: Vice makes an insensible approach, 
and steals upon us in the disguise of pleasure." 
Legislators have joined their protest to Histori- 
ans and Philosophers. The wisest legislators of 
Greece and Rome did their utmost to damp a 
theatrical spirit, but in vain. Thespis, the first 
improver of the Dramatic art, lived in the time 
of Solon; " That wise legislator (says Rollin), 
upon seeing his pieces performed, expressed his 
dislike by striking his stall against the gfc^ttftd?* 
I might fatigue the reader with quotations 
from names of the most distinguished eminence: 
it would be tedious, it would be useless. It is 

* See an excellent Sermon, entitled. The Stage, by the Abhe 
Clement. 



40 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

enough to remark, that Plato, Xenophon, Aris- 
totle, Cicero, Livy, Valerius Maximus, Solon 
and Cato, Seneca and Tacitus,, the most venera- 
ble men of antiquity; a constellation of talents 
and virtues, the greatest that ever shone, have 
all condemned the Stage. We may add to these, 
the Fathers of the Church. 

Augustine confesses, with a noble frankness 
worthy of a true penitent, that at the Theatre 
he imbibed all the venom which corrupted his 
heart. " Yes (said Tertullian), I will grant that 
your theatrical representations are simple, fasci- 
nating, and even respectable: but does he who 
prepares a poisonous draught mix gall and 
wormwood in the bowl? No: he conceals its 
deadly qualities by infusing sweet and aromatic 
ingredients." " Even (observes St. Augustine) 
if there were no other objection to the Theatre 
than the public intercourse of the sexes, not to 
speak of the criminal behaviour of women ut- 
terly destitute of modesty, who seek, by their 
languishing gestures, their penetrating voices, 
their empoisoned action, to en flame, to consume 
you with the fierceness of desire: not to uige 
this, were there no other objection to the The- 
atre than the sight of a sex always dangerous, 
but then still more so, when their charms are 
improved by every ornament that taste and lux- 
ury can invent; alas! even then it would be the 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 41 

surest snare of innocence." Miss Bailie, a mo- 
dern writer of most admirable talents, though 
she does not absolutely condemn the Stage, is 
constrained, as a moralist, to enter her pro- 
test against Busy, that is, fashionable comedy: 
" The moral tendency of it (she observes) is very 
faulty; that mockery of age, and domestic au- 
thority, so constantly held forth, has a very bad 
effect upon the younger part of an audience, and 
that continual lying and deceit in the first cha- 
racters of the piece, which is necessary for con- 
ducting the plot, has a most pernicious one." 

I conclude the tedious work of quotation by 
an extract from Collier*; the veteran chief in 

* It is fashionable to stigmatize this writer as a sour puri- 
tan; with what propriety, will he evident from a perusal of the 
following remarks of Johnson: — " Collier, a fierce and implaca- 
ble nonjurer, knew that an attack upon the Theatre would 
never make him suspected for a puritan ; he therefore pub- 
lished A short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the 
English Stage ; I believe with no other motive than religious 
zeal and honest indignation. He was formed for a controver- 
tistj with sufficient learning; with diction vehement and 
pointed, though often vulgar and incorrect ; with unconquer- 
able pertinacity ; with wit in the highest degree, keen and sar- 
castic ; and with all those powers, exalted and invigorated by 
just confidence in his cause/' As a specimen of his style and 
manner, I will furnish the reader with the concluding para- 
graph of his preface to the Short View. — ;; There is one thing 
more to acquaint the reader with ; 'tis, that I have ventured to 
change the terms of mistress and lover for others somewhat 
more plain, but much more proper. I don't look upon tin? a- 



42 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

this warfare, who in his day vanquished the great- 
est dramatic writers : " As for innocent diver- 
sions I have nothing to say against them : but I 
think people should take care not to relieve 
their spirits at the expense of their virtue — nor 
to cure melancholy witk madness, and shake off 
their spleen and their reason together." 

It will perhaps be opposed to this list of au- 
thorities, that the objections I have quoted are 
levelled against the abuse of the Theatre, that 
they affect the ancient, and not the modern 
Drama: but I beg leave to remark, that these 
censures are strikingly applicable to Theatres 
as they have ever been managed, and to plays 
as they have generally been written. An imma- 
culate Stage is one of the wonders of Utopia. 
But those who are so fond of pleading for the 
Theatre, under the notion of what it may be- 
come, should not go thither: — I think I could 



any failure in civility. As good and evil are different in them- 
selves, so they ought to be differently marked. To confound 
them in speech is the way to confound them iu practice. Ill 
qualities ought to have ill names to prevent their being catching. 
Indeed things are, in a great measure, governed b\ words ; 
to gild over a foul character serves only to perplex the idea, to 
encourage the bad, and mislead the unwary. To treat honour 
and infamy alike is an injury to virtue, and a sort of levelling 
in morality. I confess I have no ceremony for debauchery. 
For to compliment vice is but one remove from worshipping 
the devil." 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 43 

venture to assure them that a blameless Stage 
would afford them no amusement. 

The reputation of the Theatre has never been 
high among any who have had any regard for 
their own. The Fathers of the Church, Philo- 
sophers and Divines, enlightened Statesmen, and 
genuine Patriots, have all concurred to consider 
the Stage as dangerous and destructive. One of 
the most strenuous writers in defence of the 
Theatre (I do not say the most convincing) I 
ever remember to have read, advises notwith- 
standing that the public should hold it with a 
M Tight rein." It is bad indeed when an advo- 
cate, after exhausting so much rhetoric in behalf 
of a client, informs the court that he is not to 
be trusted; and advises the judge to tie his 
hands to prevent his doing mischief. I think 
this gentleman has mistaken his object: instead 
of vindicating, he has indeed condemned the 
Theatre, and adds his suiirage to those distin- 
guished characters already quoted, among whom 
no doubt, after mature consideration, he will be 
proud to enrol his name, 



44 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 



CHAP. V. 

WHETHER THE STAGE IS IN A STATE OF MO- 
RAL IMPROVEMENT CONSIDERED. 

JL HE design of this chapter is to represent the 
futility of those arguments which would prolong 
the existence of a Theatre until it attain a degree 
of purity, which will effectually silence the ob- 
jections of the religious fanatic, and the rigid" 
moralist. Great stress has been laid on the ad- 
vances which it has already made towards per- 
fection. The comparative state of the Drama, 
in the reigns of Charles the Second and George 
the Third, has been exultingiy made. The dif- 
ference in appearance is certainly great. But 
I am afraid that its principles and radical 
State are precisely the same; that they have 
been the same in every age ; and that no real im- 
improvement in this respect can reasonably be 
expected. 

It is essential to the existence of the Stage, 
that it should have charms to attract the gay and 
the fashionable; it must please; not merely by 
gratifying a poetical taste, and by simple Drama- 
tic composition, but by delineating character 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 45 

and manners. The character and manners it 
must delineate, are those of the vicious and de- 
praved; or if it pourtray the virtues, it must 
confine its pictures to the showy and the splen- 
did: and though it may shoot the follies of man- 
kind, it must not cut the heart, or touch the 
conscience. 

This consideration of itself for ever confounds 
the expectations of those who could improve an 
established Theatre. It would be a hopeless pro- 
ject to construct a Stage solely to amuse Poets 
and Philosophers — such a stage could never be 
supported: — there must be something to attract 
the multitude, and to obtain an audience suffici- 
ently large to defray the expenses of a Theatre; 
something in fact suited to the general taste. 
The Theatre, to support itself in splendor, must 
be the creature of the public. And those who 
are acquainted with human nature need not to 
be told, that the strong hand of the legislature 
is absolutely necessary to preserve a popular 
amusement within the bounds of decency. 

The principles, the pleasures, the conduct of 
mankind, must be changed before the Stage can 
be morally improved. It is a truth which requires 
little reasoning to establish it, that the Theatre, 
which derives its existence from the will of 
society, must always remain what that society 
chooses to make it. Depravity and vice, which 



46 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

are now the general features of the world, must 
yield to purity and virtue before we can expect 
the transformation of the Stage. The Theatre 
is the immoral creature of an immoral audience: 

66 The Drama's laws, the Drama's patrons give. 
And those who live to please, must please to live." 

It is the prerogative of a system entirely divine to 
effect the moral revolution of mankind; no hu- 
man contrivance, no worldly institution, will 
ever produce it. 

It may be confidently asked, What are the 
data on which the theatrical visionary builds his 
conclusion, that that which has been the bane 
will one day become the blessing of the world? 
As well may we expect all noxious things to 
change their nature: the thorn may as suddenly 
arise to the tall majestic fir, and the thistle be- 
come a vine. To be consistent with themselves, 
those who tell us that the Theatre is on the 
march of improvement, should adopt the ridicu- 
lous theory of the perfectibility of man, and 
believe that we carry in our depraved heart and 
fragile body the seeds of future renovation and 
of immortal vigour. 

The natural tendency of all evil things is from 
bad to worse; the intervention of circumstances 
may impede the progress of depravity — may 
preserve it stationary for a time; ingenious so- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 47 

phistry, and artful refinement, may cover it 
with a veil to conceal its deformity, but they 
can never change its nature. It is readily con- 
ceded, as I have more than once remarked, that 
evil is not essential to mere dramatic represen- 
tation, but it is essential to a Theatre ; and never 
did a Theatre exist which did not gratify the 
pride, the passion, and the folly of the hu- 
man heart. Here the advocates of the Stage and 
its opponents are at issue; and it devolves ou 
the former to disprove what has been urged 
against it, on the ground that it cannot, in a 
moral point of view, be essentially reformed. 

The Theatre is a mirror, in which are re- 
flected the vices and follies of mankind; its legi- 
timate object is to " show the very age and body 
of the time, his form and pressure ; and of course 
its improvement can never be greater than the 
moral improvement of the world. The boasted 
superiority of the Drama of the present above 
any former age, will be little credited Dy an 
impartial person, who will take the pains of 
comparing modern theatrical productions with 
those of the most licentious period in the days 
that are past. 

The recent introduction of the German Drama 
may be considered as a phosnomenon in the 
world of dissipation. The writings of Congreve 
and Dryden are absolutely pure,- when compared 



48 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

with the vile disgusting offspring of the profli- 
gate Kotzebue; and yet the plays of this writer 
have been the principal source from whence 
an English audience, for several winters past, 
have derived their instruction and amusement: 
even women have submitted to the ■ shameful 
task of translating pages which modesty never 
ought to have perused. 

" When the Stranger was introduced to the 
public (says a good writer) many of our fair 
dames welcomed him to this hospitable metro- 
polis. Their sympathy for the poor adulteress, 
so ably defended by Kotzebue, was a striking 
proof of their sensibility; and from the recent 
instances of crim con, it may be conjectured 
that the system of our male and female marriage 
haters is daily obtaining new proselytes. But 
the triumph of Kotzebue was incomplete till the 
appearance of Pizarro. That renowned Spanish 
warrior was conjured up from the ' Pale nations 
of the dead' to conquer a country which the 
Armada had assailed in vain. The extraordinary 
effects of this melange of tragedy, farce, and pan- 
tomime were indescribable. Multitudes crowded 
to the Theatre, where they were amused with 
thunder and lightening; while the sonorous rant 
of Rolla, and the drawling whine of Cora, ex- 
cited universal sympathy. Seized as it were 
with a general hysteric affection, the ladies blub- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 49 

bered to the great detriment of their eyes; while 
the men, animated by the bombast of Rolla, 
gazed with ardent sensations of heroism. So 
easy is it to be benevolent when there is nothing 
to be given; and so undaunted is true valour 
when there is no danger nigh! As Kotzebue elo- 
quently pleaded the cause of the adulteress in 
the Stranger, so, in his Natural Son, or as it has 
been called by an English play-monger his 
Lovers' Vows, he has placed a kind unwedded 
fair one in an equally amiable and affecting 
point of view. The Noble Lie, written by the 
same dramatist, is another proof of the felicity 
of his invention in the extenuation of guilt." 

Let us hear no more then of the moral im- 
provement of the Stage; its character is indeli- 
bly marked, and a review of its favourite pro- 
ductions is as dishonourable to the present, as 
the plays of that period were disgraceful to the 
age of Charles the Second: the principles are 
the same: the change is only in modification. 
In the former, morals were openly attacked; in 
the latter, they are artfully undermined: but 
their destruction is equally the object of both. 
In confirmation of this sentiment, it is not a lit- 
tle flattering to be able again to boats of the cele- 
brated Miss Bailie as an auxiliary : u At the be- 
ginning of its career, (she remarks) the Drama 

D 



50 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. ^ 

was employed to mislead and excite; and were 
I not unwilling to refer to transactions of the 
present times, I might abundantly confirm what 
I. have said by recent examples." 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 51 



CHAP. VI. 

CURSORY OBSERVATION? ON THE WRITERS 
FOR THE STAGE, ON THE ACTORS, AND THE 
AUDIENCE, ILLUSTRATIVE OF ITS DAN- 
GEROUS AND IMMORAL TENDENCY. 

i 

JL HAT which has prostituted and debased the 
finest talents, instead of claiming the favour, 
certainly merits the severest reprobation of man- 
kind. It is truly affecting to behold men sacrifice 
the dignity of superior intellect at the shrine of 
folly and of vice ; yet such has been the sacrifice 
the Theatre has demanded of its writers. It is a 
notorious fact, that Theatrical Authors relax, 
soften, and abridge the code of morals : to be 
successful, they must always accommodate their 
characters to the prevailing taste; instead of giv- 
ing " Ardour to virtue and confidence to truth," 
which is the only dignified employment of lite* 
rary talents, they must submit to the humiliating 
drudgery of gratifying the wishes of the volup- 
tuous and the proud, the licentious and the vain. 
The men who have instructed and delighted 
the world, Addison and Johnson, Thomson and 
Young, were indeed captivated by the lucrative 
D 2 



V% ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 

rewards of the Drama and wrote for the Stage. 
But how short-lived was their dramatic fame: — 
these writers could not descend : — they would 
maintain, even on the Stage, the dignity of the 
moralist ; and this, to a polite audience, rendered 
their productions dull and uninteresting: yet, it 
must be acknowledged, warped by the Theatre, 
they have too often amidst the finest moral sen- 
timents departed from the simplicity of virtue. 
Addison in his Cato, sacrifices at the shrine of 
Patriotism, Fortitude and Magnanimity, and 
reduces his hero at last to a dastardly coward; 
who, rather than endure the ills he felt, aban- 
doned the post of honour for the grave of 
the suicide. 

Johnson indeed, " The majestic teacher of 
moral and religious wisdom," disdained to court 
applause as a writer of tragedy at the expense of 
his taste and virtue, and the const quence was — his 
" Irene did not please the public." The great 
dramatic favourites have generally been men of 
libertine principles. Shakespeare * and Congreve, 

* I am sorry that necessity obliges me to mention 4fc Nature's 
ravounte cm:*;, 1 ' o'Vuimorta; bard, in terms of ^approba- 
tion. The n^agic olis genius, 1 am free to acknowledge, lias 
often he?d me in enhsir.atic admiration ; and, captivated by 
the charms of glowil sentiment and exquisite poetry which 
abound in his works, Welt reluctance in classing him with the 
authors who have conkbutedto spread immorality and misery 
among mankind. Be bare-faced obscenities, low vulgarity, 



1:^5 AY ON THE STAGE. Dj 

Rowe, Otway, and Kotzebue, have borne away 
the palm from every competitor. The talents of 
these writers have been eminent; but a " Peck 
of refuse wheat" would more than buy the virtue 
of all the tribe. Who is there that does not feel 
the bitterness of regret, while contemplating the 
greatest intellectual powers, the strongest ener- 
gies of native genius exhausted and spent in 
degrading the human character, which they were 
intended to exalt and improve ? Enlisted on the 

and nauseous vice, so frequently disfigure and pollute his pages, 

that we cannot but lament the " luckless hour 11 in which he 
became a writer for the Stage. This it was that degraded and 
debased the uoblest powers th t ever distinguished a human 
being • but for THis.Shakspeare would never have thus ignomi- 
uiously descended.—- On the plays of Shakspeare, 31 rs. Moore 
has ventured the following ver\ pertinent observations : — ;i With 
these excelleucies the works of this most unequal of all poets 
contain so much that is vulgar, so much that is absurd, and so 
much that is impure, so much indecent levity, false wit, and 
gross descriptions, that he should be only read in parcels, and 
with the nicest selection. 

The sentiments of this excellent writer, on the morality of 
Rowe and Otway, deserve some regard. Contrasting the pro- 
fessed objects of their dramatic pieces with their execution she 
exclaims — " In how many, for instance, of the favourite trage- 
dies of Rowe and Otway, which are most frequently acted, do 
we find passages,, and even whole scenes of a directly contrary 
tendency :. passages calculated to awaken those very passions, 
which it was the professed object of the author to counteract-— 
tt First raising a combustion of desire, 
With some cold moral they would quench the fire." 

D 3 



j4 essay on the stage. 

side of virtue, what might not these men have 
achieved ? But viewed as they are, the menial 
servants of the Stage, who can think of them 
without pity ! 

It surely is no inconsiderable argument against 
the Theatre, that it made even Addison forget 
his virtue and his creed; and degraded men of 
more genius and less principle from eminence 
they might have attained, to dishonour and 
infamy ; which, for the sake of lucre and tempo- 
rary renown, they were willing to incur. If a 
tribunal had not been established which pays 
homage to talents without virtue, the strongest 
temptation to vice would not have existed ; and 
without profit or applause, few men would take 
pleasure in disseminating immorality and misery 
for their own sake. 

Another collateral argument of some impor- 
tance against the Stage, may be drawn from the 
general character of players. The sentiments 
of mankind have ever consigned this wretched 
class of beings to infamy. The story of the 
unfortunate Laberius, exhibits in a strong point 
of view the odium which was attached to the 
profession of an actor among the Romans. Com- 
pelled by Caesar at an advanced period of life, to 
appear on the Stage to recite some of his own 
works, he felt his character as a Roman Citizen 
insulted and disgraced; and in some affecting 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 30 

verses spoken on the occasion, he incensed the 
audience against the tyrant, by whose mandate 
he was obliged to appear before them. " After 
having lived (said he) sixty years with honour. 
I left my house this morning a Roman knight, 
but shall return to it this evening an infamous 
stage player. Alas ! I have lived a day too 
long!" It is impossible to entertain respect for 
a player; and there is nAt a family of any con- 
sideration in Britain, which would not count it 
an indelible disgrace if any of its members were 
to embrace this dishonourable profession. 

It may not be improper to enquire, on what 
this almost universal detestation of such em- 
ployment is founded. The common sense of 
mankind is seldom, perhaps never wrong; what 
all concur to disapprove must be liable to serious 
objections. The reasons which render the pro- 
fession of an actor contemptible, are so con- 
spicuously and dispassionately stated by Dr. 
Witherspoon, that, together with my respect for 
the memory of the worthy author, and the con- 
sciousness that it is not in my power to do the 
subject so much justice in other words, I am 
induced to quote a page or two of his admirable 
Letter respecting Play Actors. 

" First, All powers and talents whatever, 
though excellent in themselves, when they are 
applied to the single purpose of amusing the idle, 
D 4 



0§ ESSAY OS THE STAGE. 

vain, or vicious part of society, become con- 
temptible. 

" There is not upon record among the sayings 
of bold men, one more remarkable than that of 
Sobrius the tribune, to Nero the Roman emperor; 
when asked by the emperor, why he, who w 7 as 
one of his personal guards, had conspired against 
him ? He answered, I loved you as much as any 
man, as long as you deserved to be loved, but I 
began to hate you, when, after the murder of 
your wife and mother, you became a charioteer, 
h coaildian and a buffoon. I am sensible, that 
uj this reasoning, I consider theatrical pieces, 
properly speaking, as intended for amusement, 
I am not however ignorant, that some have 
hified them with the character of schools or 
lessons of morality. 

" But as they have been generally called, and 
are still called by man)* writers, amusements, so 
I am confident every body must perceive, that 
this was their original purpose, and will be their 
capital and their principal effect. It seems to 
me of consequence in this argument to observe, 
that what is true of theatrical exhibitions, is true 
of every other effect of human genius or art, 
when applied to the purposes of amusement and 
folly, they become contemptible. Of all ex- 
ternal accomplishments there is none, that has 
been for many ages held in greater esteem than 



ESSAY 0N T THE STAGE. 57 

good horsemanship. It has been said, that the 
human form never appears with greater dignity 
than when a handsome man appears on horseback, 
with proper and elegant management of that 
noble creature. Yet when men employ them- 
selves in singular and whimsical feats, standing 
instead of riding upon a horse at full gallop, or 
upon two horses at once, or other feats of the like 
nature, in order to amuse the vain, and gather 
money from the foolish, it immediately appears 
contemptible. And for my own part, I would 
no more hold communication with a master of 
the Circus than a manager of the Theatre. And 
I should be sorry to be thought to have any 
intimacy with either the one or the other. 

"The general observation which I have made, 
applies to all human arts of every kind and class. 
Alusic has always been esteemed one of the finest 
arts, and was originally used in the worship of 
God, and the praise of heroes. Yet, when music 
is appiiedto the purposes of amusement only, it 
becomes wholly contemptible. And I believe 
the public performers, from the men-singers- and 
women-singers of Solomon, to the singers in the 
present Theatres, are considered as in a dis- 
graceful employment. I am happy to have even 
Lord Chesterfield on politeness, for my assistant 
in this cause: for though he acknowledges music 
to be one of the fine arts, yet he thinks to be 
D 5 



58 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

too great a connoisseur, and to be always fiddling 
and playing, is not consistent with the character 
of a gentleman. 

" In the second place, as players have been 
generally persons of loose morals, so their em- 
ployment directly leads to the corruption of the 
heart. It is an allowed principle among critics, 
that no human passion or character can be well 
represented unless it be felt: this they call 
entering into the spirit of the part. Now I 
suppose, the following philosophical remark is 
equally certain, that every human passion, es- 
pecially when strongly felt, gives a certain mo- 
dification to the blood and spirits, and makes the 
whole frame more susceptible of its return. There- 
fore, whoever has justly and strongly acted human 
passions that are vicious will be more prone to 
these same passions; and indeed, with respect 
to the whole character, they will soon . be in 
reality what they have so often seemed to be. 

a This applies to the whole extent of theatrical 
representation. Whoever has acted the part of 
a proud or revengeful person, I should not like 
to fall in his way when offended : and if any man 
has often acted the part of a rogue or deceiver, I 
should not be willing to trust him with my 
money. It may either be added as another remark 
or considered as a further illustration of the one 
last made, that players by so frequently appearing 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 59 

in an assumed character, lose all character of their 
own. ' Nothing, says an eminent and learn- 
ed writer, is more awkward and insipid, than 
a player oat of the line of his own profession.' 
And indeed what must that memory and brain be, 
where the constant business of its possessor is to 
obliterate one scene or system of folly, only to 
make way for another ? 

" In the third place, I cannot help thinking it 
is of some moment to observe, that players, in 
consequence of their profession, appearing con- 
tinually in an assumed character, or being em- 
ployed in preparing to assume it, must lose all 
sense of sincerity and truth. Truth is so sacred 
a thing that even the least violation of it is not 
without its degree of guilt and danger. It was 
far from being so absurd as it often has been said 
to be, what the old Spartan answered to an Athe- 
nian who spoke to him of the fine lessons found in 
their tragedies; " I think I could learn virtue 
much better from our own rules of truth and 
justice, than by hearing your lies. 

" I will here observe, that some very able and 
judicious persons have given it as a serious and 
important advice to young persons, to guard 
against mimicking and taking off others, as it is 
called, in language, voice, and gesture, — because 
it tends to destroy the simplicity and dignity of 
personal manners and behaviour. I myself in 

DO 



60 - ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

early life, knew a young man of good talents, 
who absolutely unfitted himself for public speak- 
ing by this practice. He was educated for the 
ministry, and was in every respect well qualified 
for the office; but having without suspicion fre- 
quently amused himself and others by imitating 
the tones and gestures of the most eminent 
preachers of the city where he lived, when he 
began to preach himself, he could not avoid 
falling into one or other of those tones which he 
had so often mimicked. This, as soon as it was per- 
ceived, threw the audience into a burst of laughter, 
and he was soon obliged to quit the profession alto- 
gether for no other reason, than that he had thus 
spoiled himself by the talent of imitation. I may 
say further, in support of this remark, that I have 
known no instance of one eminent for mimicking, 
who did not in time make himself contemptible. 

" But the human passion that makes the most 
conspicuous figure in the Theatre, is love. A 
play without intrigue and gallantry would be no 
play at all. This passion is of all others that 
which has produced the greatest degree of guilt 
and misery in the history of mankind. Now is 
it, or can it be denied, that actors in the Theatre 
are trained up in the knowledge and excercise of 
this passion in all its forms? It seems to have 
been a sentiment of this kind that led a certain 
author to say, that to send young people to the 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 61 

Theatre to form their mannners, is to expect 
that they will learn virtue from profligates, and 
modesty from harlots." 

As then the profession of an actor is so igno- 
minious, and as it has uniformly debased the 
human character, what virtuous mind will con- 
tribute to the support of a class of men so 
miserable, and whose very employment must 
render them contemptible ? 

Shuter, whose facetious powers convulsed 
w^hole audiences with laughter, and whose com- 
panionable qualities often " Set the table in a 
roar," was a miserable being. The following 
anecdote of him, told from the best authority, will 
confirm this assertion ; and I am afraid were we 
acquainted with many of his profession, we should 
find that his case is by no means a singular one.— - 
Shuter had heard Mr. Whitefield, and trembled 
with apprehension of a judgment to come ; he had 
also frequently heard Mr. Kinsman, and some- 
times visited him in London. One day accidentally 
meeting him in Plymouth, after some years of 
separation, he embraced him with rapture and 
enquired if that was the place of his residence : — 
Mr. Kinsman replied, " Yes, but I am just re- 
turned from London, where I have preached so 
often and to such large auditories, and have been 
so indisposed, that Dr. Fothergill advised my 
immediate return to the country for change of 



0^ ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

air." " And I," said Shuter, " have been acting- 
Sir John Falstaff so often, that I thought I should 
have died, and the physicians advised me to come 
into the country for the benefit of the air. Had 
you died it would have been in serving the best 
of masters, but had I it would have been in 
the service of the devil. Oh sir, do you think I 
shall ever be called again? I certainly was once, 
and if Mr. Whitfield had let me come to the 
Lord's table with him, I never should have gone 
back again. But the caresses of the great are 

exceedingly ensnaring. My Lord E sent 

for me to day and I was glad I could not go. 
Poor things ! They are unhappy and they want 
Shuter to make them laugh. But O, sir! such 
a life as yours: — as soon as I leave you I shall be 
king Richard. This is what they call a good play, 
as good as some sermons. I acknowledge there 
are some striking and moral things in it ; but 
after it I shall come in again with my farce 0i" A 
Dish of all Sorts," and knock all that on the head. 
Fine reformers we! Poor Shuter, once more 
thou wilt be an object of sport to the frivolous 
and the gay, who will now laugh at thee, not for 
thy drollery, but thy seriousness ; and this story 
probably will be urged against thee as the 
weakness of a noble mind ; weakness let it be 
called, but in spite of himself man must be 
serious at last. And when a player awakes to ; 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 6$ 

sober reflection, what agony must seize upon his 
soul. Let those auditories which the comic per- 
former has convulsed with laughter, witness a 
scene in which the actor retires and the man 
appears ; let tiiem behold him in the agonies of 
death, looking back with horror on a life of guilt, 
while despair is mingled with anticipations of the 
future. Players have no leisure to learn to die ; 
and if a serious thought wander into the mind, 
the painful sigh which it excites is suppressed, 
and, with an awful desperation, the wretched 
creature rushes into company to be delivered 
from himself. A more careless, a more unre- 
flecting being than a player cannot exist; for if 
an intense impression of the dignity of reason, 
the importance of character, and future respon- 
sibility beoncefelt, he can be a player no longer. 

Upon what principles then of Christianity, or 
of moral obligation, can I hire an individual to 
prostitute his talents and his life to that which 
must render him infamous and wretched, and 
which, with respect to myself and family, I should 
esteem a reproach and a serious calamity ? Bene- 
volence, the great law of universal equity, the 
welfare of society, of which players are the peet, 
call upon us in an imperious tone, to relinquish 
an amusement which demands the sacrifice ot so 
many human victims. 

We have shuddered at the barbarous cruelty 



04 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

of the Indian Tribes, when, to appease their 
gods, they have cherished devotion with the 
warm blood of humanity ; and when we have seen 
the horrid libation poured out to their execrable 
deities, our hearts have bled with compassion. 
But are we not chargeable with an enormity 
much more shocking, when we erect the Stage as 
an altar, and immolate to the god of pleasure the 
talents, the morals, the eternal happiness of so 
many immortal beings, who from time to time 
and in quick succession are consigned to infamy 
worse than death in this Temple of delusion?— 
It is true, we endeavour to calm the perturbed 
spirits of our departed Heroes of the Boards, by 
raising monuments to their fame in the cloistered 
abbey; but could Garrick rise from the tomb, 
with what indignation would he trample into 
dust the marbie that perpetuates his disgrace. 

No man presents a stronger proof of the fatal 
influence of the profession of an actor on 
character than David Garrick. This Roscius of 
his day, this universal favourite, what is his post- 
humous renown? What advantages have society 
derived from the excercise of his talents? What 
would the world have been injured if he had never 
lived, and what was the loss it sustained when 
he died? Take a man of equal celebrity from 
any of the honourable departments of life, either 
a Lawyer, a Divine, or a man of Literature, and 



BSSAY ON THE STAGE. 65 

compare him with Garrick. Read together the 
memoirs of their lives, and you will find that the 
actor degraded the man; and that a comparison 
of him with a fellow-being of equal talents and 
equal fame in another profession, is infinitely to 
his disadvantage. 

When Johnson and Garrick launched forth 
together on the ocean of life, their condition was 
the same — " Unknowing and unknown," they had 
each a character to form and reputation to acquire. 
And now they have gained the port, and live but in 
the sentiments of mankind, let us view the memo- 
rial with which their names are handed down to 
posterity. Garrick lived atrifler; — never was a 
life more barren of incidents which reflect honour 
on human nature than his: — amoral lesson never 
fell from his lips. In a prologue, he even ridiculed 
Dr. Young for washing to appropriate the profits 
of his play to the spread of the gospel. Under 
opposition he w T as fretful and malicious; — in 
prosperity he appeared a compound of arrogance, 
envy and vanity. He is known but by his 
biographer; and I think no man who reads his 
life w 7 ill say," I wish I had been Garrick." John- 
son, on the contrary, will be remembered and 
revered to the latest posterity. There is indeed 
a ruggedness in his character, a sort of repellent 
quality, that rendered him not very amiable in 
the drawing-room ; but this moroseness, if it may 



66 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

be called by so harsh a name, in a great measure 
proceeded from his circumstances. Let us re- 
present to ourselves Johnson, the greatest of 
human beings, struggling with poverty, encoun- 
tering difficulties, and often depending for the 
next meal on the resources of his own talents, or 
the precarious humours of unfeeling booksellers, 
and we shall not be surprized that his character 
was deeply tinctured with something which cer- 
tainly does not resemble the milk ot human kind- 
ness*: but with all his failings, ttie conversation of 
Johnson was always interesting, always instruc- 
tive; he was the friend of religion, and drew his 
sublime morality from this its purest source. He 
and Garrick lived tor the public; but the one 
was its creature, its ape, its mimic, while the 
other enriched it with lessons of wisdom, and 
incited it to virtue by the persuasives of eloquence 
aided by sincerity in the cause. 

* I have endeavoured, in the delineation of the character of 
this great man, says one of his biographers, with equal care to 
avoid the extremes of praise and blame ; I trust to the charity, 
the gratitude, and the justice of impartial posterity, that the 
failings of a man, whose whole life was a conflict with pain and 
adversity, will either be forgiven or forgotten- and that the 
remembrance of his virtues, and a reverence for the wonderful 
endowments of his mind, and his zeal in the employment of them 
to the best purposes, will be coeval with those excellent lessons of 
religion, morality, and oeconomical wisdom which he has left 
behind him. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 67 

Johnson's best eulogium is his works, which 
will be read with admiration as long as taste, 
literature, and virtue are preserved among men. 
There is this difference in the feelings of a person 
who reads the lives of Garrick and Johnson — 
Garrick we pity, Johnson we admire: — with 
Garrick we are often disgusted and mortified ; 
the more we know of Johnson the more we desire 
to learn. In closing the last volume of Garrick' s 
memoirs we sigh and say, " This man lived in 
vain !" but as we draw on to the evening of John- 
son's life, it is with sad reluctance: — wethink 
not even Boswell tedious; we would protract 
the history ; and when we are forced to shut the 
volume, it is with this conviction, " It is happy 
for the world that Johnson lived !" 

Having introduced Dr. Johnson on this subject, 
as a contrast to Garrick, to show the pernicious 
influence of the Stage on the character of a player 
of eminent talents in his profession, — it may not 
be amiss to enquire what ideas our great moralist 
entertained of the employment. In his life of 
Savage, he speaks of the condition of an actor, as 
that which makes almost" Everyman, for what- 
ever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petulant, 
selfish and brutal/' That there have been a few 
exceptions to this, that Mrs. Siddons and two or 
three others have retained a virtuous character, 
notwithstanding all the temptations and blandish- 



68' £SSAY ON- THE STAGE, 

ments of the profession, is no argument against 
this general, notorious fact. In a town infected 
with the plague, an individual or two may have 
escaped the contagion; but who would welcome 
the pestilence into their neighbourhood, because 
it has not been universally destructive; or who 
would seriously argue, that because some consti- 
tutions have withstood its power that it is there- 
fore harmless? 

The argument against the Theatre, drawn from 
the general character of players,will, I am aware, 
have little influence on those who would sacrifice 
the human race if it could administer to their 
pleasure; to propose such an argument to them, 
they will say, betrays the most arrant fanaticism. 
Those who can deride a Wilberfoiice for his 
noble ;xertions to effect the abolition of the 
slave trade, because luxury demands its con- 
tinuance; will laugh too at the attempt which 
would restore the degraded player to the dignity 
of a human being, by destroying a profession 
which, though it has made him infamous, affords 
amusement and pleasure to the fashionable and 
the gay. 

But perhaps it may be urged, that the man 
who commences actor does it from choice, and 
that the degradation is on his part voluntary. 
But is not female prostitution voluntary likewise ? 
And is not that man guilty of a breach of moral 



ESSAY ON THE STAGS. 69 

obligation, is he not an enemy to society, who 
supports a prostitute ? That a \ layer voluntarily 
embraces a profession that sinks him into con- 
tempt, is a proof of his degeneracy. But are we 
to be partakers of other men's sins? Because 
there was a wretch like Hubert to be found, was 
the murderer John less criminal, when he em- 
ployed him to assassinate the infant prince of 
whom he should have been the protector, the 
guardian, the friend? 

Pretended benevolence, I know, may still plead 
for a Theatre, under the idea that players are fit 
for nothing else ; that disgust at the sober and 
honourable occupations of life, and a moral ina- 
bility to discharge its duties, together with a 
love of vanity and an eager desire of applause, 
first led them to tread the boards; that persons 
of this description are only qualified to be the 
menial servants of the public ; and that if we 
take away from them figure, gesture, enunciation 
and the power of memory — there is " Preterea 
ttihfl." — There would be indeed some weight in 
this consideration, if the disease which afflicts 
the r, oral constitution of these poor creatures 
were not contagious; if it did not infect otiiers, 
and contribute to enlarge the sphere of vice and 
misery. Could we convert the Theatre into a 
sort of Bedlam, and not suffer these ragitig chil- 
dren of passion and folly to propagate their 



70 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

wretchedness, we might gratify the best feelings 
of the heart, and indulge a compassion which 
reason and humanity would justify. 

There is another argument on which some 
persons lay great stress, and which I am afraid 
will render all the former reasoning against 
players and the Theatre ineffectual ; — and that 
is, if we abolish the Stage, people of fashion will 
be deprived of the most productive topic of con- 
versation. Deduct from fashionable discourse 
the last night's play, Kemble's attitudes, and the 
affected tragic strutting of the infant Betty, and 
what remains? If the Theatre did not kindly 
relieve the embarrassments arising from the 
want of subjects to talk of in many genteel cir- 
cles, after the bow and the stare, they would 
have nothing to do but to bow again and retire. 
We must have players, that those things called 
Beaus and Belles may not be reduced to mere 
automata, or given up to dismal ennui. The 
happiness of so important a part of society ought 
surely to induce hesitation before we rashly and 
barbarously propose the abolition of the Stage. 

To one who views the Theatre, and its ad- 
mirers, in the same contemptible light, this is a 
consideration of little moment; and such an one 
will not even now be convinced that players 
should sacrifice the dignity of human nature, 
and every thing that is dear to man, to compH- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 71 

ment the fashionable world. It is indeed the 
province of the unhappy individuals themselves 
to decide on this. But it should be the deter- 
mination of every friend of humanity to leave the 
support of the Theatre to those who derive from 
it this only advantage which it can possibly yield. 
In addition to what has been already written 
on the pernicious and destructive influence of 
the Stage, the audience which it usually 
attracts, is an argument which should be seri- 
ously weighed. I cannot help considering the 
Theatre in this view, as the enchanted ground of 
iniquity; it is here that vice lifts up its head with 
undaunted courage; that the most licentious 
and abandoned females endeavour, by meretri- 
cious ornament, and every art which lascivious 
wantonness can invent, to allure the young and 
inconsiderate, who, with passions enkindled by 
what is passing on the Stage, are thrown off 
their guard, and thus fatally prepared to fall the 
victims of seduction. The avenues to the The- 
atres, the box-lobby, and many of the most con- 
spicuous places in it, are filled with women of 
this description. On the stage there is every 
thing to excite improper ideas in the mind, and 
in the audience every thing to gratify them. 
The emotion is soon inflamed to a passion; rea- 
son quickly yields to its powerful empire, and 
ruin is too often the fatal consequence. 



*2 ESSAY ON, THE STAGE. 

I know it is by no means unusual to condemn 
this mode of reasoning- as inconclusive. It has 
been said, that temptations to vice are to be 
found every where, and that the Church is as 
dangerous in this respect as the Theatre. This 
however is not true. Temptations are no where 
armed with such power as at the Playhouse. 
That the abomination of desolation sometimes 
intrudes into the holy place, and pollutes the 
sanctuary, is an awful truth. But is there not 
in a place of worship every thing to check un- 
hallowed passions, and to counteract the influ- 
ence of vice in its most seductive forms ? At 
the house of prayer we have heard of infamous 
women, who came to scoff, shrinking with hor- 
ror, and trembling with apprehension; and, in- 
stead of seducing others, they have been them- 
selves reclaimed. But the Theatre, by its own 
proper influence, and the coinciding influence 
of accidental evil in the audience, has made a 
thousand male and female prostitutes; while at 
Church, there perhaps was never a youth of 
untainted morals who fell into the snare of 
female profligacy. They are not men of virtue 
who are seduced at Church: — that man must 
have been practised in iniquity who could 
sutler himself to be led astray from before the 
altar: but a youth hitherto innocent and un- 
contaminated may fall an easy victim at the 



1.SSAY OS THE STAGK. }$ 

Theatre. The sighs and tears of many wretched 
parents, whose children have been swallowed 

up in this vortex of dissipation, are in the place 

« 

of a thousand arguments against the destructive 
tendency of a Theatre, and a theatrical audi- 
ence. 

Sir John Hawkins, in his Life of Johnson, has 
a remark which strikingly illustrates what I 
have now advanced. " Although it is said of 
plays, that they teach morality; and of the Stage, 
that it is the mirror of human life: these asser- 
tions are mere declamation, and have no foun- 
dation in truth or experience: on the contrary. 
a Playhouse, and the regions about it, are the 
very hot-beds of vice. How else comes it to 
pass, that no sooner is a Playhouse opened in 
any part of the kingdom, than it becomes sur- 
rounded by an Halo of Brothels? Of this truth 
the neighbourhood of the place I am now speak- 
ing of (Goodman's Fields Theatre) has had ex- 
perience; one parish alone, adjacent thereto, 
having, to my knowledge, expended the sum of 
1500/. in prosecutions, for the purpose of remov- 
ing those inhabitants whom, for instruction in 
the science of human life, the Playhouse had 
drawn thither." 

Let the contents of this chapter, and their 
agreement with facts, be seriously examined and 
dispassionately considered, and I have no doubt 

E 



7 4 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

that every impartial mind will justify the con- 
clusion to which I am brought — that the Stage 
is evil only evil, and that the welfare of society, 
and the happiness of the world, call loudly for 
its abolition. But as this cannot be expected in 
the present state of things, the wise and the 
virtuous should at least discountenance it, both 
by their influence and example. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. Jo 



CHAP. VII. 

THE STAGE CONSIDERED WITH RESPECT TO 
ITS INFLUENCE IN RETARDING THE PRO- 
GRESS OF VITAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Christianity is the balm of life; its 

healing virtue invigorates the exhausted powers, 
enlivens the depressed spirits, silences torment- 
ing apprehensions, and tranquillizes the agitated 
breast. There is no case of misery which it 
cannot reach; there is no depth of human woe 
which it cannot fathom: " Like the fabled power 
of enchantment, it changes the thorny couch 
into a bed of down; closes with a touch- the 
wounds of the soul ; and converts a wilderness 
of sorrow into the borders of paradise." But 
Christianity, calculated as it is to banish guilt 
and wretchedness from the world*, is powerless 
and ineffectual until it becomes a vital principle 
in the heart, until its doctrines are cordially em- 
braced, and its morality implicitly obeyed. To 
yield a cold assent to its evidences, to enlist 
under its standard by merely wearing its name 
as a badge of distinction, is in fact not to believe 



76 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

in it at all: — it must be welcomed to the bosom, 
and must there be enthroned, or the blessings 
which follow in its train can never be enjoyed. 

Perhaps there are very few persons who would 
deliberately renounce the Christian faith, I 
would hope there are fewer still who do not 
shudder with abhorrence when they think of the 
philosophical association, with Voltaire at its 
head, which was formed to annihilate Chris- 
tianity, and whose watch-word, when the Re- 
deemer's honour was to be assailed, was, "Crush 
the wretch." But it is to be feared there are 
many of this description, who, while they be- 
lieve that a disavowal of Christianity would be 
the renunciation of ail future hope, are yet very 
far from being Christians indeed. They really 
and in fact give up every thing in Christianity 
but the name; that they retain as a sort of 
charm to lull an accusing conscience to repose, 
and to disarm death of some of his terrors. The 
opinions they reverence are such as the New 
Testament rejects as pernicious and destructive; 
the code of morals which they have formed to 
themselves, independently of the Cospel, is such 
as the Christian Legislator never enforced; and 
Christians of this character are remarkable for 
nothing so much as a universal departure, both 
in spirit and conduct, from their great Exem- 
plar. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 77 

Among a great variety of causes which have 
contributed to produce this strange inconsist- 
ency and opposition between name and princi- 
ple, profession and practice, we may reckon the 
Stage. This enemy has robbed many of the lit- 
tle religion which once distinguished them, and 
lodged in the hearts of others the strongest pre- 
judices against the practical influence of Chris- 
tianity. The fashionable religionists of our day 
are illustrations of the first part of this assertion ; 
and the difficulty which persons, under a pow- 
erful conviction of the truth and importance of 
religion, feel in resigning to its influence their 
last favourite — the Stage, is a proof of the other 
part*. 

When I hear some fashionable Christians 
converse, when I behold their conduct in the 
world, I at once perceive, that the orator on the 
boards has a far greater influence than the ora- 
tor in the pulpit; and an attendance on both has 
produced such an oddity and inconsistency of 
character, that Adam would scarcely know his 
offspring; and Jesus of Nazareth must certainly 

* Two persons, one an eminently pious minister of the Gos- 
pel, and the other an accomplished and excellent female, 
assured me, when conversing with them on this subject, that 
previous to their becoming serious, the Stage opposed in theis 
hearts the most powerful barrier to their receiving genuine 
religion •, they thought they could sacrifice every thing to its 
claims — but the Theatre, 

E3 



t6 ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 

disfranchise them from all the privileges and 
immunities which will distinguish his genuine 
followers. 

The Theatre, when resorted to by persons 
who profess to have embraced the Christian 
religion in its peculiar doctrines and strict mo- 
rality, soon displays its wonder-working power: 
Religion quickly resigns the throne to Pleasure; 
the doctrines of the Cross give place to a less 
severe and more accommodating system; or if 
the creed remain unaltered, it loses its practical 
effect — " The salt has lost its savour;" the pecu- 
liar features of the Christian character are gra- 
dually softened down till they disappear. 

I am aware it will be no easy task to persuade 
the religious lovers of the Stage that it has pro- 
duced this effect upon them; for apostasy, from 
the purity and simplicity of the Gospel is a dis- 
ease, which, while it strikes every eye besides, is 
concealed from the miserable patient himself. 
It was when the church at Laodicea was poor, 
and miserable, and blind, and naked, that she 
imagined herself rich and increased in goods. 
The character of a man- is certainly discovered, 
by his pleasures. If a person, professing to be 
regulated in his spirit and conduct by the pure, 
morality of the Gospel, can be gratified with 
amusements, which are pursued with avidity by 
the vicious and the vain, in exact proportion as 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. ]& 

he derives pleasure from those amusements, he 
must be departing from the spirit of Christi- 
anity; for Christianity aims to produce a cha- 
racter singular, and every way unlike the charac- 
ter of those who are the abettors of the Sage. If 
one fashionable amusement more than another 
be stampt with the features of what is called in 
the Gospel " The world/' it is the Theatre. Be- 
fore a person can seek pleasure from the Drama 
he must have imbibed much of the spirit of the 
world: for there every thing is exhibited, and 
exhibited with plausibility, to which the Chris- 
tian Lawgiver has said, " Be not conformed." 
When Christians sanction the Stage, they betray 
their religion into the hands of the enemy; and 
Christianity is more effectually injured by these, 
its pretended friends, than by the open attacks 
of the most hostile and inveterate of its avowed 
adversaries. To such Christians I would recom- 
mend consistency, and advise them never to 
absent themselves from the Theatre when the 
play-bills announce for perforajance — " The 
Hypocrite." 

The Stage has operated against Christianity 
two ways: — its morality has always been a mo- 
rality diametrically 'opposite to tke morality of 
the Gospel, and consequently it produces an 
antichristian character: — it has also vitiated the. 
taste by raising the passions above their proper 
E4 



SO ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

tone, and thus inducing a dislike and aversion 
to grave and serious subjects, which have no- 
thing to recommend them but their simplicity 
and importance. 

CHRISTIAN MORALITY AND THE MORALITY 
OF THE STAGE CONTRASTED. 

The sublime morality of the Gospel has ex- 
cited the admiration, if not the love, of all 
mankind: even infidels, who proudly contemn 
the Christian faith, have paid their reluctant 
homage to that system of morals which the 
genius of Christianity has revealed, and which 
by its sanctions it inculcates and maintains, 
This morality has indeed renounced the spurious 
virtues of a depraved world; it calls nothing 
good but that which really is so in the nature 
of things; it perplexes and renders ridiculous 
man}' terms in the Nomenclature of moral 
science, invented by mere philosophers and 
poets; and that which conduces not to the hap- 
piness of man as an individual, or a social being, 
however specious its appearance, it despises and 
condemns. In this it is singularly inditlerent to 
the prejudices and sentiments of mankind; it 
neither courts their admiration, nor deprecates 
their censure: — as the instructor of a world, its 
tone is dignified and firm. Its system is open 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 81 

to the inspection of all, but it accommodates its 
principles and injunctions to none. What is 
good it enjoins : what is evil, and even that 
which has the appearance of evil, it forbids. 

The morality of the Gospel is strict but neces- 
sary, and is austere to those only who are viti- 
ated and destitute of its spirit. It is an unerring 
guide in every path, and in every situation of 
life; to the children of men it kindly speaks, and 
its language is, " This is the way, walk ye in 
it." This is the only infallible Mentor: other 
self-appointed instructors will present them- 
selves on the road, assuming the garb, and 
sometimes the language, of Christianity: but of 
these we are commanded to beware; their steps 
lead down to death. But it not unfrequently 
happens that the enemy of man is caressed as 
his friend, and welcomed by general consent to 
the heart. We should however recollect, that 
it may not be virtue which the multitude ap- 
plauds, and that he is not the sincerest friend 
who is the most insinuating, and who boasts of 
his qualifications. The sentiments of what is 
called a Christian public, are not always to be 
regarded as Christianity. TlTe subtle writer 
who, to restore the moral constitution, mingles 
sweet poison with his medicine, is a quack hi 
ethics, and, like ail empirics, kills where he 
ought to cure. And from what is known of the 

E 5 



82 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

human heart, no man, who avails himself of 
such a method of doing good, will ever succeed; 
he departs from the genius and spirit of Chris- 
tianity. He who consults the public taste, and 
who would conciliate the depraved passions 
which lurk in the bosom, in order to convey 
instruction to the mind, will destroy his pupils : 
to every grain of virtue conveyed in this danger- 
ous vehicle, there must be an ounce of destruc- 
tive vice. Now r such a Pretender to moral sci- 
ence, when contrasted with the Gospel, is the 
Stage. 

The Gospel is moral in every view, and every 
way hostile to sin. The Stage dazzles with a 
few specious qualities, which are greatly ex- 
ceeded by entire characters of disgusting vice. 
Sometimes indeed the midnight horror of ini- 
quity experiences a momentary illumination by 
a solitary flash of virtuous sentiment; but even 
its best sentiments are tainted; and when com- 
pared with the Gospel retire into nothing, or 
worse than nothing; while its counterfeit vir- 
tues, and real vices, are fatally destructive to 
morals and to man. 

The ascendancy of the passions over reason— 
the perversion of reason by inherent depravity, 
is the fruitful source of all human misery. To 
destroy this ascendancy — to sanctify the pas- 
sions — and to impart a holy principle to reason, 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 83 

is the object and the aim of Christianity: — its 
doctrines, its precepts, the sublime example 
which it proposes, all and equally tend to re- 
store man to holiness and happiness. Thus 
every thing in the Gospel is directly opposed to 
pride and ambition, to anger and revenge, to 
levity and wantonness: every page of this inva- 
luable book inculcates humility and content- 
ment, condescension and meekness, sobriety and 
chastity; a spirit of fervent pity breathes from 
the alpha to the omega of the New Testa- 
ment; and its leading fundamental principle is — 
" Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 
The man whose life is regulated by Christianity 
acknowledges God in all his enjoyments, and 
submits to his equitable government without 
murmur or complaint in the hour of suffering 
and distress. Xow let a person who has read 
the Gospel till its spirit is all his own — till its 
principles are deeply rooted in his soul — let such 
an one enter the Theatre, our modern school of 
virtue; and if it were possible to detain him 
there during the performance of one evening, 
what would be his sensations— what the com- 
punction of his heart — that he had ever pas* 
sed the unhallowed threshold of this sanctu- 
ary of folly and delusion! How would he 
blush for human nature, and weep at the 



84 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

awful depravity of these boasted intructors of 
mankind* ! 

* Some perhaps will censure, while others will commend, my 
introducing here the following quotation : but it is connected 
with the subject, and certainly has a tendency to produce a 
beneficial effect on the minds of those who are in the habit of 
visiting the Theatre. It is extracted from a sermon of Mr. 
Love, a clergyman of Scotland, who once preached in Artillery- 
!ane, London ; the sermon is entitled, " The radical Cause of 
National Calamity j" and had Britain listened to that warning 
voice, the portentous cloud which is ready to burst over our 
devoted heads might, perhaps, have passed away. 

" At the Theatre, when all is sunk in haughty forgetfulness 
of God; after the proud have once more displayed their bril- 
liancy, and * set their heart as the heart of God j' after th«» eyes 
of vanity have, for the last time, feasted themse ves ; after 
the tears which real guilt and misery demanded, have been 
wasted on fictitious crimes and calamities, and the whole crowd 
hath been shaken with the madness of laughter; after profane- 
ness hath unfurled its flag of defiance, with hell-bred gall mtry 
setting at nought the name of the Most High, the tremendous 
operations of Providence, and the terrors of the bottomless-pit j 
after obscenity hath shallowed down its morsel of elegant fil- 
tliiness j let a celestial spirit shine forth, eclipsing the lumina- 
ries of the place, and scattering round those terrors which were 
once felt at the Sepu ehre of Jesus of Nazareth; and in such 
strains as these let his voice announce the hastening doom:— . 
• Worms of the dust, enemies of the eternal God ! you have 
10:15 been the abhorrence of the inhabitants of heaven ; you 
have disdained to seek Jesus, who was crucified , the ; ivine sor- 
rows, the pure delights, which his spirit creates in repenting 
souls, you have rejected- — you have treated with derision ; now 
the day of your visitation expires. I swear by him that liveth 
for ever and ever, you shall have time no longer !* Then let trem- 
bling rock the ground ; let the. fabric and its miserable assem- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 85 

A brief review of one of the most celebrated 
theatrical productions, and the least exception- 
able of any 1 have read, will evince the truth of 
the above remarks, and be a sufficient apology 
for their severity. 

Comedy is in its nature so contemptible, and 
the " Stuff" of which it is made so disgusting to 
a mind of common dignity, that its plots, its 
follies, and what some are pleased to call, its 
good-humoured vices, shall not pollute my page. 
Love, intrigue, prodigality dressed in the garb 
of generosity, profaneness dignified with the 
name of fashionable spirit, seduction and adul- 
tery, mere peccadillos in these days of refine- 
ment, are all materials which the comic muse 
combines and adorns to please and instruct her 
Votaries. More pernicious to the moral consti- 
tution than is hellebore to the natural, are the 
seductive plays imported from Germany. The 
Pizarro of Kotzebue is levelled at Christianity, 
and, like our Humes and our Gibbons, its author 
has purchased to himself indelible disgrace, by 

bly roll down the opening chasm } and let the croud of dislodged 
spirits beho'd the majestic, unveiled, flaming countenance of 
their Judge. \\ ould such vengeance be too severe .—-Let us not 
presume to say that it would j rather let us wonder that, 
amidst ages of provocation, such tokens of wrath have not ap- 
peared ; and if our impenitence is still continued, let us think 
with awe for what solemn catastrophe such a people as we may 
be reserved." 



86 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

making Jesus of Nazareth the author and insti- 
gator of crime. The Virgin of the Sun is ex- 
ceptionable on another ground; and the mother 
that could suffer her daughters to read it in the 
closet, much more behold it at a Theatre, must 
be the monster of her species, and the deliberate 
murderer of female virtue in the person of her 
own offspring. I would, but I dare not, tran- 
scribe a passage which is entitled to pre-eminent 
infamy — my soul revolts, and I commit the de- 
tested copy to the flames. — 'Twas an act of jus- 
tice: — my heart is at ease. I will now go on. 

I shall not be accused of partiality in my se- 
lection from the English Drama, if I offer a few 
strictures on the Tragedy of Douglas. This 
is reckoned one of our best theatrical perform- 
ances; its morality has been highly applauded, 
and it is written by a clergyman. — But its prin- 
ciples are autichristian. Its author, one of the 
angels of the Scottish church, if he ever under- 
stood the Gospel, is fallen like Lucifer, son of 
the morning. There are in this production some 
vestiges of an acquaintance with Christianity — 
but ah, how mutilated!— -how 7 changed ! And 
if the religion of his sermons inculcate the mo- 
rality of his tragedy, his unfortunate bearers, if 
they admire and approve, wiil be any thing but 
Christians. 

As a dramatic composition, this tragedy is 



ESAYS ON THE STAGE. 87 

entitled to considerable praise; it is well con- 
ducted; the style is elegant, and in the highest 
degree it is interesting : but in a moral point of 
view, and with regard to its aspect on Chris- 
tianity, it is exceedingly dangerou s. 

The first speech of Lady Randolph has a fault 
which no Christian writer ought to commit; she 
concludes her soliloquy by a reflection on " Fate." 
But is Fate the God we worship? There are 
many excellent traits in the character of this 
heroine of the piece: — she feels as a mother; but 
she talks not, she acts not, like a Christian ; yet 
she is held up to the audience as a character to 
be admired and imitated. A clandestine marriage 
is the cause of her misfortunes: but she is not 
blamed for this act of imprudence. Her father 
was not consulted, but deceived: — she indeed 
laments the deception, but does not repent of 
her romantic love. In relating her story to Anna 
she refers again to " ruling Fate;" and as she 
advances, in the spirit of dissatisfaction, and as if 
in contempt of Providence, she upbraids the God 
of Heaven for afflicting her: — 



- u mighty heaven, 



What had i done to merit this affiiction ?" 

Does this resemble him who said, " The Lord 
gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be 
the name of the Lord?" But what has a fictiti- 



88 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

ous character on the Stagfe to do with Heaven? 
How shameful this solemn appeal in such circum- 
stances, and how dreadfully impious the sen- 
timent; 

Again : hear this Amazon breathing a martial 
spirit, exalting the trade of arms above the shep- 
herd's humble useful walk. 



u what does my Anna think 
Of the young Eaglet of a valiant nest ? 
How soon he gaz'd on bright and burning arms ; 
Spurn'd the low dunghill where his fate had thrown him 5 
Aud tower 1 d up to the region of his sire." 

Here is a sentiment which Christianity abhors; 
but it appears to be a favourite with our Chris- 
tian divine, for he has more than once introduced 
it with approbation. The feudal spirit animates 
him, and the peasantry, the strength and glory 
of a country, the sinews of a state, are in his 
view the refuse of the dunghill; while the 
barbarous love of arms exalts its possessor to 
another, and a higher rank of being. This high 
told rant may gratify the Scottish pride of ances- 
try, and may be sweet music in the ear of the 
haughty baron ; but the Gospel knows nothing 
of a natural inequality of mankind. And, if to 
be born with the savage spirit of war, and with a 
thirst for blood, be a proof of inherent dignity, 
the Tyger of the woods claims the precedence, 
and is superior to the most distinguished heroes 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 89 

that ever Scotland knew. But listen : this Chris- 
tian lady is at her devotions : hear her prayer : 

" Oh thou all righteous and eternal King, 
Who Father of the fatherless art calPd, 
Protect my son ! Thy inspiration, Lord, 
Hath fiil'd his hosom with that sacred lire, 
Which in the breasts of his forefathers burn'd ; 
Set him on high, like them, that he may shine 
The star and glory of his native land." 

Pride, ambition, revenge, the love of glory, all 
which Christianity is intended to extirpate from 
the human breast, and which have been the 
bane and misery of man, are here traced to a 
source which makes me shudder : — the inspiration 
of Jehovah hath filfd her son's breast with the 
sacred fire of these unhallowed passions! What 
page of the New Testament warrants any of its 
votaries to adopt such sentiments? St. James 
would never have addressed such a prayer to the 
God of Heaven : — " Whence come wars and fight- 
ings among you ? Come they not of your lusts?" 
was his opinion on the subject. What I have 
hinted before, the awful profaneness of such ap- 
peals to heaven from an actress on the Stage, 
must chill every pious breast with horror. What 
daring impiety! A Christian divine is deter- 
mined to write a tragedy, and, for the sake of stage 
effect, he ventures to make the Eternal God 
one of the dramatis persons; and calls him ever 



90 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

and anon to sanction pride, to smile on ambition, 
to lend his authority, and stamp with dignity a 
fiction — a lie. Frequent instances of this shocking 
impiety occur in the tragedy of Douglas. 

But Lady Randolph, with whom the audience 
is made to sympathize, and who is the most 
virtuous heroine that ever figured on the Stage, 
is brought at last to crown her piety and her vir- 
tue with suicide. Unable longer to sustain the 
shock of adversity : deprived of every earthly 
comfort; and as if the consolations of that 
Heaven in which she is made to trust were sus- 
pended, she closes her career by self-murder. 



44 such a son, 



And such a husband drive me to my fate." 

The other characters of this piece are equally 
exceptionable; ttieir morality cannot bear the 
severe test of the Gospel. Lord Randolph and 
Douglas are exhibited to be admired; but this 
would be a miserable world, if mankind were to 
imbibe the spirit and temper of these personages. 
Prompt to revenge an injury; proud and ambiti- 
ous in the highest degree; impatient of restraint; 
and deadly in their hate, are these instructors of 
a Christian audience. Douglas dies, acknow- 
le ging that he only wished to live to run the 
career of glory and to be admired. There is a 
scene in his life, where the audience are made to 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 91 

catch the spirit of duelling, and almost to regret 
that the sword was not drawn to avenge a private 
wrong. His leaving the house of his reputed fa- 
ther as an adventurer, is not mentioned as a fault, 
though his sudden departure wrung the old man's 
heart with anxiety and sorrow. In the eye of the 
author this boy has no defect ; and he undoubtedly- 
intended him as a model for our British youth. 
The whole tragedy is well adapted to make them 
warriors, duellists, and suicides. But the self- 
denying virtues of Christianity; that benevolence 
which embraces the whole human race as one 
family; that controul over our own spirit; that 
disposition to forgive injuries, and to do good to 
those who despitefully use us ; that fervent zeal to 
live to the glory of God ; that acquiescence in his 
will, in every situation of trial and affliction; all 
of which are the distinguishing features of Chris- 
tian morality, they will never learn from Douglas, 
nor from any other theatrical performance that 
was ever received with approbation on the Mage. 
Indeed, Christian virtue, or the Christian cha- 
racter drawn to the life, wholly complete in 
every part, wouldnpt please, but disgust a mixed 
audience : — and the reason is obvious; those who 
refuse o welcome true religion to their Hearts, 
ipu$t have then aversion to it subdued beiore 
they can be pleased with seeing it on the Stage, 
Christianity aims to complete the moral cha- 



S2 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

racter, and acknowledges none as its votaries till 
they renounce every sin. The Stage fixes on 
one or two amiable qualities, which cannot be 
considered as virtues, to atone for a thousand 
follies and a thousand crimes. And it is remark- 
able, that on the Stage those qualities only are ap- 
plauded, which a man may possess while he is en- 
tirely destitute of religion ; and others too are com- 
mended which he ought not, which he cannot pos- 
sess if he be a real Christian. If a character be 
frank, open generous, and brave, he has, ac- 
cording to the Vocabulary of the Stage," A good 
heart." He may be an adulterer, a libertine, a 
despiser of Cod, and a trampler on his laws, 
and these are only human frailties. 

Will it not then be acknowledged with univer- 
sal conviction, that the morality of the Stage, 
and the morality of the Gospel, are irreconcil- 
ably at variance; that there is little, if any thing, 
in common between them; and that in propor* 
tion as the one advances in the formation of 
character, an effectual barrier is opposed to the 
influence and success of the other? 

The Stage is a miserable school for the con- 
duct of life; its most finished character is the 
slave of passion, the creature of the moment, 
without capacity or inclination to perform the 
most essential duties which are required of him 
as a social being, The good man of the Theatre, 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 93 

who receives the plaudits of a Christian audi- 
ence, is not a Christian ; his principles are taught 
in a seminary where Christ has no authority, and 
are directly opposite to those which Christianity 
would implant in the breast. It is a maxim with 
him, that present gratification is to be preferred 
to suffering virtue; that ambition is superior to 
contentment : that pride is necessary to carry a 
man with decency through the world ; that re- 
sentment is manly spirit; and patience of inju- 
ries, meanness and degradation. Such, with re- 
spect to the conduct of life, is a character formed 
by the Stage. And the objects which the The- 
atre instructs its votary to pursue, are as anti- 
christian as the principles which it would recom- 
mend. It is said of the Christian, that he lives 
in the present world — ■" As seeing him who is 
invisible:" he considers himself as a stranger 
and traveller, whose goal is immortality, and 
whose reward is the approving smile of heaven : 
he pursues an incorruptible treasure, and pro- 
claims himself to be the Denizen of a city whose 
builder and maker is God. 



-" the liisrh-born soul 



Disdains to rest her heav'n-aspiring wing 
Beneath its native quarry." 

The degraded pupil of the Stage, on the con- 
trary, has no prospects beyond the limits of mor- 



94 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

tality; his horizon is the grave; his schemes are 
all " Earthly, sensual, or devilish ;" the highest 
precept of his instructor is — " Live while you 
live." What Foster beautifully declares of elegant 
literature, is strikingly applicable to the best 
theatrical productions which are exhibited on 
the Stage, with all the pomp of scenery, gesture, 
and action. The Theatre " Does not instruct a 
man to act, to enjoy, and to suffer, as a being 
that may to-morrow have finally abandoned this 
orb; every thing is done to beguile the feeling 
of his being a stranger and pilgrim on the earth." 
The Stage " Endeavours to raise the groves of 
an earthly paradise, to shade from sight that vista 
which opens to the distance of Eternity." 

So completely a man of this world is the hero 
of the Theatre, that if disappointment, which is 
the common lot of humanity, overtake him, he 
is inconsolable; and as if his fortune and happi- 
ness were forever wrecked, he mourns that " The 
Everlasting has fixed his canon 'gainst self-mur- 
der ;" or, forgetting entirely that there is an 
Almighty Being or a future state, he ends with 
his own hands what he fondly hopes is the 
whoie of his existence. This method of closing 
the earthly scene, is peculiar to him who 
makes this wond all important, and who is 
regardless of another. The very tendency of 
the Theatre leads to this:— having confined ob- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 95 

jects worthy of pursuit to a present state, it 
teaches — that want of success is the loss of 
every thing; and that a man, whom the world 
and benignant Fortune disown, has no business 
with life. 

The pleasures of a character formed by the 
Theatre, are such as Christianity forbids, and 
which to the Christian are insipid and disgusting. 

These two beings seem to be cast in a different 
mould: that of which the one speaks with 
rapture, upon which he reflects with satisfaction, 
and to the repetition of which he looks forward 
with delight, is to the other nauseous; he rejects 
it " With hatefullest disrelish," and avoids it as 
the minister of pain. The pursuit of both is 
happiness; but in what different paths is it 
sought by each! and how opposite the sources 
from whence it is derived ! I know of no worse 
purgatory to a man whose character the Stage 
has formed, than to be doomed to converse and 
associate with a real Christian. Place an indi- 
vidual of this description beside the seraphic 
John, or holy Paul; let them both disclose the 
sources of their enjoyments, the objects which in 
the possession afford them pleasure, and the an- 
ticipations that charm them with the delights of 
hope, and you will at once perceive that every 
thing is dissimilar and opposite: — the Apostle 
views his companion with pity and concern; the 



96 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

companion regards the Apostle with wonder and 
contempt. 

It may perhaps be urged, that without the 
influence of the Theatre, every man destitute of 
religion would be equally averse from the con- 
duct, the pursuits, and the pleasures of the Chris- 
tian. That the depravity of the human heart is 
a decided foe to exalted, scriptural piety, is un- 
doubtedly true ; but it is possible surely to mature 
the seeds of vice, to increase the natural enmity 
of the human mind against the Gospel, by 
arming it with prejudice, and deluding it with 
error. This is effectually done when the world 
creates its instructor, and becomes its own law- 
giver; when it establishes a school where man- 
kind are flattered into a persuasion, that the 
human heart, without the salutary, transforming 
influence of religion, is the seat of virtuous prin- 
ciple ; that sufferings, which are the consequences 
of guilt, may be considered as an atonement for 
crime; and that he who has lived imperfectly 
virtuous, even according to its own system of 
virtue, while his heart is estranged from God, 
may, nevertheless, confidently expect the mercy 
of heaven. Clothed in this Panoply furnished 
by the Stage, the heart is assailed by Christianity 
in vain; for it is the Stage that inculcates 
doctrines like these, and impresses their characters 
indelibjy on the Soul. Man is naturally pleased 



ESSA.Y OX THE STAGE. 97 

with the teacher that prophecies good concerning 
him, while he turns away with aversion from 
the less accommodating instructor, who, fearless 
of consequences, would force upon him un- 
welcome truth; and the more he is captivated 
by the one, his prejudices are increased and 
strengthened against the other. 

No one, I think, will seriously deny, that a 
man who has imbibed the general sentiments 
which are enforced on the Stage, is a more de- 
cided enemy to pure, unsophisticated Christianity, 
than he who has never yielded to its influence; 
for though the latter may be depraved, and con- 
sequently averse from vital religion, yet his 
heart is not fortified with the prejudices of error. 
And whatever opposition is to be subdued by 
the Gospel previous to its complete triumph over 
him, it has not to contend with the impressions 
of a theatrical character. It has no ingenious 
sophistry to unravel, no enchanting visions to 
disrobe of their fallacious beauty, no daz- 
zling, yet destructive principles of action to 
eradicate. 

To err in our ideas of moral obligation, and 
the nature and extent of moral science, is fatal to 
individual and social happiness. Such error is a 
formidable opponent to Christianity — it makes 
usTniserable and keeps us so. Yet, the Stage is 
the school where pure morality is mutilated, 

F 



98 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

tarnished, and perplexed; where precept and 
example combine their influence to form a cha- 
racter whose every feature Christianity must 
efface before it can be admitted into the heart. 
In proportion, therefore, to the moral influence 
of the Stage, must be the sum of human wretch- 
edness. That this influence operates strongly 
against Christianity, will appear from another 
view of the subject. 

The Stage raises the passions above 
their proper tone, a s d thus induces a 
dislike to grave and serious subjects, 
which have nothing but their simplicity 
and importance to recommend them. 

The Gospel is simple and grave; it rejects 
with indignation the foreign aid of ornament ; to 
recommend itself to the world, it depends on 
nothing but its own intrinsic excellence. The 
enticing words of man's wisdom, the finesse of 
oratory, the rich attire, the modern drapery, in 
which some advocates of " Pulpit eloquence" 
would fain invest divine truth, are but the efforts 
of imbecility to adorn a theme, whose dignity is 
plainness, whose nature is simplicity. The 
Theatre and theatrical productions are just the 
reverse of this; and an attendance on the Stage 
has, in this view, been greatly prejudicial to 
Christianity. The Stage, as its doctrines and 
precepts are congenial with the frame and dis- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGTE. £# 

position of the human heart, as it nourishes, or 
at best but refines the degeneracy of our depraved 
nature, so there is every thing in its manner to 
fascinate, to allure, to impress the Soul. The 
passions, our treacherous enemies, are touched 
by the scenes of the Drama, and bewilder and 
delude the understanding. 

Poetry, music, action, oratory, all enlisted in 
the cause of fiction, combine their influence to 
draw off the mind from the simple and the useful, 
while a passion for the romantic, the showy, and 
the splendid, is excited and increased. The soul 
is elated, and sometimes wound up to rapture, 
while sentiments are impressed on the mind, 
which neither time nor occupation will ever 
efface. The most dangerous effect produced by 
the Theatre in this view, is, that it absolutely 
debilitates the mind, and renders it inaccessible 
by simple, yet everlastingly important truth. — As 
the powers are raised above their proper tdnc 
artificial impulse, the best instructions- conveyed 
in a different method are nugatory and vain. 
What the ingenious Mr. Knight haft said of the 
passion for Romances and X ovels, is strikingly 
true of the Stage — it produces" A sickly sensi- 
bility of mind, which is equally adverse to thq 
acquisition of useful knowledge an'.i sound mo- 
rality." The passions which guard the avenue.-, 
to the understanding, have received a kind yi 
F 2 



100 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

stupor, from which nothing but theatrical power 
can rouse them. A weak stimulus will not act 
after one that is more powerful. Thus sentiments 
however pernicious and destructive to the moral 
character and to happiness, received at the 
Theatre, continually deepen their impression on 
the Soul, till they are absolutely indelible: — 
they become the inseparable attendants on con- 
sciousness, and the individual must forget himself 
to lose these, his constant companions. If his 
mind ever ask for new ideas : if, not satiated with 
what it already has attained, it longs for more, he 
must visit the Theatre : — reading is insipid, 
except a novel relieve the tedious interval ; con- 
versation for improvement is dull and uninterest- 
ing; nothing can seize his attention powerfully 
but the Drama. 

It is said of Sir Matthew Hale, " That he was 
an extraordinary proficient at School, and for 
some time at Oxford ; but the Stage Players 
coming thither, he was so much corrupted by 
seeing plays, that he almost wholly forsook his 
studies. By this he not only lost much time, 
but found that his head was thereby filled with 
vain images of things; and being afterwards 
sensible of the mischief of this, he resolved, upon 
his coming to London, never to see a play again, 
to which he constantly adhered." 

If then a love for the Stage unfit the mind for 



ESSAY ON THE STAG I.. 101 

the acquisition of useful knowledge which has 
no connexion with religion, how seriously hos- 
tile must it be to Christianity! I knew a young 
man so bewitched by the Theatre, that he felt an 
absolute incapacity to read the most interesting 
productions in Science and Theology. " Around 
this enchanted spot (said he to a friend) I linger- 
ed long, till its fatal influence had nearly beguiled 
me of my salvation ; I thought the Gospel insipid, 
and lessons of morality insufferably disgusting: 
and had not the powers of the world to come roused 
me from this moral lethargy, Christianity would 
have continued my aversion, and the Stage my 
idol." The indignant eloquence of the Abbe 
Clement will also assist me here. The Theatre, 
say its advocates, informs and relieves the mind. 
" Yes, if to make all useful reading insipid ; to 
withdraw the mind, by an indescribable and 
secret charm, from every serious and important 
occupation; to deprave the taste, by exciting 
aft insurmountable aversion to simplicity, and an 
exclusive admiration of the marvellous; and to 
debase the feelings, by destroying all sense of 
gratification but in the most violent agitations of 
the soul: — if this be to inform the mind, the 
argument is irresistible. My friends, this de- 
scription is not overcharged, you know that it is 
not; you know that these are the effects of the 
best regulated Stage," To live in fairy land, and 

F 3 



102 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

to converse with fiction, is charming; but it has 
the same effect on the intellectual and moral 
constitution as opium on the natural. There are 
pleasures ill madness which only madmen know; 
'.but what rational being would envy the maniac 
his joys? And if fiction and the Stage rob us of 
sober truth and reasonable pleasure ; if, when we 
break from their influence, we are left without 
consolation, and without hope, shall we yield to 
their enchantment, or suffer ourselves to be 
carried away by such delusory vanities ? When 
their fatal tendency is considered; when we 
reflect, that subjects, the most essential and 
important, fail to impress a theatrical mind; 
that religious and moral improvement can never 
be attained, while we accustom ourselves to the 
pleasures of the Stage, shall we for a moment 
hesitate which to abandon. 

The most preposterous inconsistency marks 
that tnan's character, who, while he pretends to 
venerate Christianity, can admit for a moment 
the opposing claims of the Theatre. Irrecon- 
cilable enemies cannot be seated on the same 
throne ; and the love of vital religion cannot 
exist in the heart that feels the remotest approach 
to a theatrical passion. That the Stage is in 
every view hostile to the Spirit and influence of 
Christianity, is a question which may soon be 
decided by an impartial examination of the New 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 103 

Testament, and those theatrical productions 
which have allured and deceived the world. 

My views of the Gospel, may, perhaps, be 
condemned by some as unreasonably strict and 
severe ; yet, I think, if the Christian Lawgiver be 
deemed infallible, and if the system of morals 
which he has made known be admitted without 
mutilation or change, objections on this ground 
will vanish into air. Those who consider the 
New Testament as the standard and the source 
of evangelical and moral truth, must acknowledge 
that I have oniy copied from the great original ; 
that the " Sermon on the Mount," and the hor- 
tatory eloquence of Paul, are in perfect unison 
with that delineation of Christian Ethics which 
I have feebly made; between which and the 
Theatre there is the widest clifterence, and the 
greatest opposition. 

By sutiering the Gospel to speak out its 
claims, by exhibiting its native characters, with- 
out reference or regard to the sentiments and 
prejudices of mankind, I am conscious of having 
exposed myself to the charge of fanaticism. The 
accommodating moralist and the fashionable 
divine, will each depart from his usual softness, 
and, with the unpoliteness of vulgar censure, 
consign me to infamy. But this is nothing new; 
it is no uncommon thing to affect to despise that 
to which we have no disposition to conform. 
Accordingly, pure, unsophisticated Christianity 



104 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

has ever been held in derision by those whose 
conduct it censures, and whose principles it 
condemns. " The world is not its friend, nor 
the world's law." And its advocates must ex- 
pect to share in the obloquy which it is doomed 
to suffer. But let no man shrink from a firm 
and dignified avowal, that he is the friend, the 
admirer, the champion, of a system which is 
divine. — Unmov'd by censure or applause, the 
cause he should consider as every thing. Secure 
in the approbation of conscience, the opposition 
of men he should cheerfully sustain, or nobly 
disregard. 

I pity the man w T hose passion for fame leads 
him to court the approbation of his fellow crea- 
tures, at the expense of their virtue ; who thrusts 
Christianity into the shade, when it ought to 
occupy the throne; or, if he bring it forward at 
all, so softens its features, so transforms its cha- 
racter, that it becomes the creature of a depraved 
mind, rather than the infinitely pure system of a 
Divine Author. Let it never be forgotten that it 
is altogether out of the character of Christi- 
anity, to act a subservient, or accommodating 
part; she must be invested with absolute autho- 
rity, or she is in fact disregarded and despised. 

If Christianity, therefore, be the religion of 
our choice, our amusements, and our amusing 
instructors should be conformed to its nature, 
and pervaded by its spirit. Conscious that, in 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 105 

this reasoning there is some force, Christians 
who plead for the Stage have fallen into a 
dangerous error; they have disfigured and tar- 
nished the pure, immaculate robe of Christianity, 
while they have bedizened the vest of Thalia 
with ornaments and beauties which it never 
possessed but in their imagination. And, thus,, 
when the Gospel is " Shorn of its beams,'' and 
the Stage arrayed in borrowed, adventitious 
glories, a sort of resemblance is artfully produced 
between them. 

It not a little surprised me, that such a writer 
fts Knox should evidently sanction the Theatre, 
that he should commend in the gross (for he has 
not discriminated) the moral tendency of the 
Plays of Shakspeare, Otway, and Rowe. 

After having " Entered into all the feelings' 5 
of these writers, when we have " Assimilated with 
their souls," let us take up the volume of truth 
and righteousness; and we must certainly acknow- 
ledge that however gratifying it may be to feel 
with the Drama, it is not Christian feeling; it rs 
something the very reverse, which Christianity 
would suppress, and which Christians therefore 
ought not to indulge. Yet Dr. Knox is a Chris- 
tian divine, whose writings in general do honour 
to his profession*. 

* This was written before DK Knox printed his Philanthropic 
Sermon : Literature and ReHgion should now disown him. 

F 5 



106 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

If any men more than others are bound to 
throw their whole weight of influence into the 
scale opposite to the Theatre, they are Clergy- 
men, who by profession are sacred teachers of 
sacred truth. For divines to prostitute their 
talents by writing for the Stage, is to destroy 
with one hand what they build with the other: 
they are vainly attempting to serve two masters 
of opposite claims, and of characters so essen- 
tially ditTe rent, that if they love the one, they must 
despise the other. Equally culpable are those 
w 7 ho sanction the Theatre by their presence and 
example. Language cannot reprobate in terms 
sufficiently strong, the conduct of those" Pliable 
Priests," who waste th^ir evenings in sauntering 
about the Theatre ; sometimes in the boxes, then 
in the lobby, and other places of public and 
indecent resort. Clerical fops, who/" Familiar 
with a round of ladyships, make Cod's work a 
v inecure." But there are who glory in their 
shame. Censure is lost upon those who diead no 
charge so much, as that of being sincerely in 
earnest in their sacred profession. This would be 
branding them with infamy indeed. But how- 
ever lou^ the catalogue of their follies and their 
crimes, this will never be inserted as one -of 
its items. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, 107 



CHAP. VIII. 

THE STAGE CONSIDERED AS AN AMUSEMENT 
ONLY. 



-ITHERTO I have considered the Theatre as 
amoral instructor; and though amusement be 
its primary object I have endeavoured to show, 
that it must have some influence in the forma- 
tion of character, and th^t that influence is de- 
cidedly hostile to the best interests of man. But 
there are advocates of the Stage, who disclaim 
the idea of its being a teacher, who plead for it 
as an amusement only. And though I am per- 
suaded that it must be injurious to morals, yet, 
for the sake of argument, and to show that it 
cannot be defended on any ground, I will divest 
it of its character as an instructor, and consider 
it only in the light in which Shaftsbury pleaded 
for it, and Rousseau commended it. Shaftsbury 
declares, " That the Theatre was intended merely 
for recreation, and that if it have any tendency 
to improve, the improvement extends only to 
the art of the poet, and the refinement of taste." 
Rousseau, in his System of Education, has a si- 
F6 



10S ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

milar remark. " I carry Emilius to the Theatre 
(says he), not to study morals, but taste ; for there 
it particularly displays itself to those who are 
capable of reflection. You have nothing to do, 
I will tell him, with morality here, this is not 
the place in which to learn it : the Stage was not 
erected for the promulgation of truth, but to 
flatter and amuse." 

With respect to the improvement of taste and 
the poetic art by the Drama, whatever the an- 
cients might urge on this head, the moderns 
surely have nothing to claim. Garrick in vain 
attempted to discipline the taste of an English 
audience; he at lastrelinguished the task in de- 
spair, and was heard to say, " That if the public 
required him to get up for the Stage the Pilgrim's 
Progress, he would do it." I conceive there is 
even less to be said in favour of the modern 
Drama as a standard of taste, than can be ad- 
vanced in its defence as a school of morals; and 
in both, it is a severe reflection on our literature 
and virtue. 

As an amusement only, I think the Stage can- 
not be defended: strip it of its pretensions to 
taste, and to moral instruction, and it loses every 
thing: — for as an amusement it is altogether 
improper. The question naturally presents it- 
self here — What is the nature and end of amuse- 
ment? And when this is answered, another 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 109 

immediately follows: — Does the Theatre cor- 
respond with this idea; is it calculated to answer 
this end? 

Amusement is recreation, and is intended to 
relieve the mind from severe attention, or to 
recruit the animal spirits, by an agreeable sus- 
pension of bodily labour. Man is formed for 
exertion; his circumstances in general require 
activity : but weariness and fatigue are the con- 
sequence of a proper and becoming attention to 
the business and duties of life. The mind must 
sometimes relax — the body cannot always exert 
its energies. But it is injurious to the intellec- 
tual power6, and to the animal constitution, to 
suffer an immediate transition from busy em- 
ployment to perfect idleness. We naturally ask 
for recreation, something that will assist the 
mind pleasingly to unbend; that will enliven 
and exhilarate the spirits, and thus prepare us 
for the return of occupation, and qualify us to 
enter upon it with new energy. 

It is necessary that our amusements should be 
suited to our pursuits. The student and the 
man of science should recreate himself with 
something adapted to the nature of his employ- 
ment, and which at the same time conduces to his 
health. Exercise, light reading, social converse, 
are all sources of pleasure and recreation to the 
student; and if he be not fastidious they are all 



110 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

lie requires. The man of business, after his mind 
has been wearied by its cares, and his body 
fatigued, if he have a rational taste, will retire 
iuto the bosom of his family; or if he be not 
blest with the endearments of domestic life, he 
will certainly recreate and enliven his spirits 
by innocent diversion ; he will studiously avoid 
every thing which would violently agitate his 
frame, which demands the labour of close atten- 
tion, and which cannot be accomplished but by 
a waste of time, incompatible with any active 
employment. Amusement should invigorate, 
and not exhaust the powers; it should spread a 
sweet serenity over the mind, and should be en- 
joyed at proper seasons. Midnight is no time 
for recreation to a rational being, who lives 
for any other purpose than to destroy his con- 
stitution, and kill time. The amusements of 
society should never encroach upon its duties, 
or they defeat their object and become inju- 
rious. 

It must be perceived that I have hitherto 
spoken of the amusements of those who are 
"Useful to their kind;" I have not considered 
the miserable expedients of fops and fools, by 
which they endeavour to relieve themselves from 
the burden of idleness, and the listlessness of 
having no one important object to engage their 
attention ; and who contrive one folly after ano- 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. Ill 

ther, in quick succession, to enable them to pass 
through life without reflection, and with as lit- 
tle benefit as possible to themselves or others. 
I pity the contemptible creature who has no- 
thing to do but to get rid of his time; to talk of 
amusing -such a being is a misapplication of 
words. Amusement is his business; and who 
will envy him his drudgery, or his toil ? He 
inverts the order of nature; he seems to be 
happy, but he betrays himself; it is easy to 
discern, through his apparent gaiety, his real 
wretchedness : — 'tis 

" A face cf pleasure, but a heart of pain. - " 

I think it would be a service, which all moral 
writers would render to mankind, were they to 
strike off these tiny beings, these animalcula, 
from the list of rational existence; and therefore 
I wish it to be distinctly understood, that I con- 
sider their example and their claims lighter than 
air: — they have mistaken the great end of living; 
and their conduct is one continued aberration 
from nature, reason, and happiness. 

But to return. If the nature and end of 
amusement be to recreate the mind, and to re- 
cruit the strength of those who are performing 
the duties of life; and if those things only are 
proper for amusement which have this ten- 
dency, it surely will never be urged, in favour x>f 



112 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

the Theatre, that it is a suitable recreation for 
persons of this description and character. 

The mind is as much employed, the attention is 
as strongly seized at the Theatre, as in any of the 
engagements of active life. Fatigue and weari- 
ness are felt as much on quitting the Playhouse 
as on leaving the Study, the Counting-house, or 
the Exchange. There is nothing that exhausts 
us more than the fever of the passions. The 
tempest of the soul is succeeded by distressing- 
lassitude. After it subsides, we seem deprived 
of strength; our energies are gone; and it is 
sometime before the mind recovers its former 
tone. Now it is notorious, that the Theatre 
rouses the passions, and agitates the soui. If we 
attend at all to what is passing before us, we are 
deeply interested; the real occurrences of life, 
which involve in them the happiness or misery 
of individuals, could not impress us more, nor 
would they so much. One moment we swell 
with ambition, and the next are fired with re- 
venge; now we tremble with fear, then burn 
with desire ; sometimes we chill with horror, 
and anon in sympathy, with the imaginary child 
of woe — 

^ Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees 
Their mediciual gum." 

The Theatre then, in this view, cannot 



ESSAY Oi* THE STAGE, 113 

reasonably be considered as an amusement. 
Unless it assume a higher character; unless it 
answer some moral purpose, it would be pre- 
posterous to represent it as recreation for intelli- 
gent minds, who wish to unbend and relax, that 
they may attend with more ability and pleasure 
to the great object for which they are bound to 
live. 

The hours, the precious hours, too, which are 
consumed at the Theatre, is another argument 
against it of great moment. To w r aste four 
hours, some of which at least should be other- 
wise employed by creatures who are accountable 
to the Supreme Being, and who owe him grati- 
tude and adoration, is defeating the very pur- 
pose of amusement: it makes pleasure intrude 
beyond the precincts of duty: it destroys the 
peace ana order of every well regulated family, 
and absolutely unfits the mind for performing 
any thing with vigour through the whole suc- 
ceeding day. And in addition to these consi- 
derations it will not be claimed for theatrical 
amusement, that it conduces to health. The 
Rosy Goddess dwells not in the crowded The- 
atre; but pale Sickness and wan Disease are 
there seated on an ebon throne, scattering 
around, with a lavish hand, the fatal seeds of 
Death. 

These are things so obviously striking, that 



114 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

every reader must acknowledge their force. If 
persons visit the Theatre, without being at all 
interested in what is there passing, their apathy 
and idiocy are features of the clan to which they 
belong; and to reason with those who are inca- 
pable of thought would betray folly almost as 
disgusting as their own. 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE, llo 



CONCLUSION. 

JL HUS, in almost every view in which we can 
contemplate the Stage, we are struck with its 
injurious and baneful tendency. Those who 
defend it as a school of morals can never have 
seriously examined its character, or traced its 
influence. It will excite surprise that any man, 
who professes to be acquainted with theatrical 
productions, should gravely commend them in 
the following strain: — <c True Tragedy is a se- 
rious lecture upon our duty, shorter than 
an epic poem, and longer than a fable ; other- 
wise differing from both only iti the method, 
which is dialogue instead of narration. Its pro- 
vince is to bring us in love with the more exalt- 
ed -virtues, and to create a detestation of the 
blacker and (humanly speaking] more enor- 
mous crimes. In Comedy, an insinuating mirth 
laughs us out of our frailties, by making us 
ashamed of them. Thus, wh n they are well 
intended, Tragedy and Comedy work to one 
purpose: the one manages us as cnildren, the 
other convinces us as men.' 1 How finely this 
sounds in theory ! But it would surely be kind 



116 ESSA\ r ON THE STAGE. 

in such writers to inform us, in what age these 
Tragedies, and these well-intended Comedies, 
were written; and in what part of the world 
they are acted with approbation and effect. 
With this charming representation in our minds, 
let us range through the ancient and modern 
Drama. But in our researches after this potent 
facinating instructor, we shall take even the 
lamp of Diogenes in vain. 

It has been said, in reply to those arguments 
which maintain the immoral influence of the 
Theatre, by confident individuals, " We have 
attended theatrical representations, and escaped 
the contagion; we have sustained no injury." 
There are two sorts of persons who m y fancy 
they can adopt this language: the very virtuous 9 
the " Unco guid," who are proof against temp- 
tation in its most seductive forms ; or those 
whose vices are so numerous, and so deeply- 
rooted in the heart, that even the Stage cannot 
add to their number, or increase their power. 
With respect to the first, we have only their 
own testimony in favour of their extraordinary 
goodness; and what shall we think of the humi- 
lity and modesty of those who proclaim, that 
they only, among the children of men, are the 
persons who can trifle with sin without receiv- 
ing the least immoral taint? We have heard of 
a power to charm the adder; but these indivi- 



i^SAY ON THE STAGE. 117 

duals have found a drug which will captivate 
the " Old serpent" himself, and render him 
harmless. However I doubt their pretensions, 
I am ready to question that man's virtue who 
can encourage, by his presence and example, 
indecent ribaldry, profane swearing, and mock 
devotion. This is indeed a sort of monstrous 
virtue, which a man may make a show of; and 
I know of no place so fit for its exhibition as the 
Theatre. I would say to these very virtuous 
persons — though you can rush into the fire, and 
escape the injury of the flame, yet remember all 
are not so invulnerable as you; and it is the 
duty of a virtuous mind to study the good of 
others. Perhaps the very night of your attend- 
ance may be marked in the history of some de- 
luded young person, as the dreadful osra from 
whence he has to date his everlasting ruin. And, 
oh horrid to think, you contributed, by your 
example and your money, to keep open the 
gates of hell, which, when they close, are to 
close upon him for ever! The second class, 
namely, those who are so depraved, so versed in 
the science of iniquity, that they have nothing 
to learn from the Stage, are persons with whom 
I have nothing to do: — they are perhaps incor- 
rigible ; and a book on the immorality of the 
Stage they will never peruse. Those who have 
no more virtue than their neighbours, who, in an 



118 ESSAY ON TttE STAGE. 

evil hour, may be ensnared by vice/ or deluded 
by temptation, will surely be warned of the dan- 
ger which lurks in every avenue to a Theatre, 
and which is enthroned on its boards; to them 
it will be painful to receive impressions which 
strongly fortify the heart against the Gospel of 
our Salvation : — and no man, who is not bereft 
of reason, will court amusement at the expense 
of purity of conscience, and the rectitude of 
virtue. 

It has often struck me, when meditating on 
this subject, that could we banish from the 
Theatre the illusion with which its scenery, the 
dress, and language of the performers captivate 
the mind, we should lose all temptation to visit 
it for amusement. 

The apparatus for a Stage is thus humourously 
described by Rousseau. " Imagine to yourself 
the inside of a large box, about fifteen feet wide, 
and long in proportion. This box is the Stage; 
on each side are placed screens at different dis- 
tances, on which the objects of the scene are 
coarsely painted. Beyond this is a great curtain 
daubed in the same manner, which extends from 
one side to the other, and is generally cut 
through to represent caves in the earth, and 
openings in the heavens, as the perspective re- 
quires; so that if any person, in walking behind 
the scenes, should happen to brush against the 



ESSAY OX THE STAGE. 119 

curtain, he might cause an earthquake so violent 
as to shake — our sides with laughing. The skies 
are represented by a parcel of bluish rags, hung 
up with lines and poles, like wet linen at the 
washerwoman's. The sun, for he is represented 
here sometimes, is a large candle in a lantern. 
A troubled sea is made of long roller?, covered 
with canvas or blue paper, laid parallel, and 
turned by the dirty understrappers of the The- 
atre. Their thunder is a heavy cart, which rum- 
bles over the floor. The flashes of lightning are 
made by throwing powdered rosin into the flame 
of a link: and the falling thunderbolt is a cracker 
at the end of a squib. The stage is provided 
with little square trap-doors, which opening on 
occasion, give notice that ghosts and devils are 
coming out of the cellar." 

With respect to theatrical exhibitions them- 
selves I can easily conceive; if an individual 
could be found, whose reason is unbiassed, and 
whose mind is stored with every kind of know- 
ledge but that which is derived from poets and 
the gay world, if such an one were told that a 
number of men and women were maintained for 
no other purpose than to pretend to make love 
to, and to pretend to kill one another on a stage 
prepared for the purpose; that their business 
was to hold dialogues under fictitious characters, 
and to feign the most extravagant passions that 



120 ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 

ever agitated the human breast, in scenes of the 
deepest interest; and if he were further told, 
that multitudes of rational beings would sit 
hours together to be amused by all this folly; 
I can easily conceive I say, that he would be, 
beyond measure, astonished. " Can the persons 
of whom you speak (he would reply) be dignified 
with the godlike power of reason? I know not 
for my part which most to pity, the poor crea- 
tures who are condemned to play the ape for so 
many hours, or the contemptible beings who 
voluntarily consent so long to play the fool." 

That Christians ought to abhor the Stage, 
when they consider it as a teacher; and that 
they ought to despise it as an amusement, de- 
grading to the character, and as injurious to the 
pursuits of immortal beings, will be at once ac- 
knowledged. They are obliged to do more than 
others. If the subject were doubtful — were it a 
matter of question only, whether the Theatre 
were lawful to Christians or not, the disciple of 
Jesus is bound to take the safest side, to avoid 
the appearance of evil, and to live to the glory 
of his God. Besides, it is not necessary for him 
to seek enjoyment abroad in any of the distin- 
guishing vanities of the world. The nearer he 
approximates to Deity, terrestrial objects lose 
their glory and their charms. His amusements 
are the pleasures of religion: — he has what the 



ESSAY ON THE STAGE. 151 

Scriptures call "A new heart;" a heart whose 
affections centre in the All-sufficient Good:— it 
is formed for celestial joys, and it aspires after 
the entertainments of Angels. This is its ardent 
language : — 

" My wishes, hopes, my pleasures, aud my love, 
My thoughts, and noblest passious, are above. 

It is with you then, reader, to determine, whe- 
ther you will renounce Christianity, or the The- 
atre. Fear not the world, or its " Dread laugh," 
but choose that wisdom, whose ways are plea- 
santness, and all whose paths are peace. 



APPENDIX : 



CONTAINING 



STRICTURES ON AN ARTICLE 

IN THE FIFTH VOLUME OF 

THE ANNUAL REVIEW, 

WHICH IS A 

CRITIQUE ON THE PRECEDING ESSAY, 

AND AVOWEDLY 

3 defence of tbt %tw* 

Judex ctemnatur cum nocens absolvitor. 

Motto to the Edinburgh Review. 



APPENDIX. 



HEN an important subject is presented to 
the public — when it excites attention, and rouses 
discussion, the friends of truth have reason to 
rejoice. On this account, I feel peculiarly hap- 
py in being called upon to defend the principles 
and reasonings contained in my Essay on the 
Stage; especially when my opponent is a writer 
in the Annual Review ; a work to which the name 
of a responsible editor is affixed, and which has 
considerable claim to literary distinction. Its 
principles indeed I have never approved ; for its 
literary department is poisoned with infidelity, 
and its theological with Socinianism. Yet, as 
it sustains a respectable character in the repub- 
lic of letters, its strictures on any subject con- 
nected with the interests of morality and religion 
are worthy of some regard. In this Review I have 
been honoured with more attention than I had 
any reason to expect; my insignificant volume 
has produced a laboured defence of the Stage, and 
G3 



126 APPENDIX. 

the most extravagant encomiums on its import- 
ance and moral excellence; indeed the writer's 
zeal seems to have overwhelmed his judgment, 
and to have hurried him into excesses of literary 
delinquency, for which the cool, deliberate la- 
bours of his future life will scarcely atone; for 
who will reverence the declamation of ignorance 
and the extravagance of folly ?— « Happily for his 
subsequent fame he is unknown; he has, for this 
time, escaped; while he has left the avowed 
editor of the work responsible for all his errors 
of assertion and fallacies of reasoning. 

Reviews in general deserve very little atten- 
tion. An author may indeed amuse himself 
with their contradictory reports — with their de- 
nunciations and applauses of the same work; 
but to be seriously affected with the one or the 
other, would be preposterous folly. It requires 
little sagacity to discover what kind of treat- 
ment a book will receive from the different Re- 
views. It is sometimes important to inquire by 
whom a work is published, and you will then 
almost certainly ascertain by what Reviews it 
will be praised and blamed: at another time it 
is desirable to know who and what the author is, 
and, without reading a page of his book, you 
may decide as to its fate among the various 
tribes of critics. Many of our critical Journals 
are merely booksellers' jobs, conducted, by men 



APPENDIX. 1^7 

whose principles are safely deposited in the Till 
of their employers, and who, according to their 
bargain, applaud or condemn. 

It is amusing to hear these sons of the quill 
vaunting of their dignity, and calling them- 
selves magistrates in the republic of letters: 
their raving reminds us of Bedlam, and its mighty 
kings of straw : however, we pardon their phren- 
zy, for perhaps much learning has made them 
mad*. By no hereditary right — by no elective 
franchise, do they fill the chair of criticism, yet 
they assume the lofty tone of legitimate sove- 
reigns, whose will is law; from whose decisions 
there is-.no appeal. Bloated with imaginary con- 
sequence, they denounce and commend : but if 
the question be asked, who are these mighty 
judges of literary pretensions, that proudly de- 
cide an author's fate? We soon discover that 
their censures or applauses are only valuable 
while they are themselves unknown. 

It is not a little mortifying, when we have 
read the haughty dictates of a literary' magis- 
trate, to find that he is some needy adventurer, 
who perhaps has never written any thing but 
articles for Reviews, and whose name the book- 
sellers, the vMecaenas's of our age, dare not 
affix to any work which is manufactured^ under 

* I do not here mean the Critical Reviewers j nobody will 
ever suspect them to be guilty of the siu of knowing any thing. 



128 APPENDIX. 

their patronage: when we consider the charac- 
ters and qualifications of these self-created cen- 
sors, well may we ask, in the language of the 
satirist, 

How could these self-elected monarchs raise 

So large an empire on so small a base ; 

In what retreat, inglorious and unknown, 

l>id Genius sleep when dullness seized the throne ; 

Whence absolute now grown, and fvee from awe, 

She to the subject world dispenses law ? 

Without her licence not a letter stirs, 

And all the captive criss-cross row is her's. 

The Stagyrite, who rules from nature drew, 

Opinions gave, but gave his reasons too. 

Our great dictators take a shorter way :— 

Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say ? 

Their word's sufficient-— and to ask a reason. 

In such a state as theirs, is downright treason. 

True judgment now with them alone can dwell, 

Like church of Rome, they're grown infallible. 

Dull superstitions readers they deceive, 

And knowing nothing, every thing believe ! 

But why repine we that these puny elves 

Shoot into giants: — we may thank ourselves ; 

Fools that we are, like Israel's foo:s of yore, 

The calf ourselves have fashion' d we adore: 

But let true reason once resume her reign, 

This God shall dwindle to a calf again. 

Periodical Reviews are now multiplying be* 
yond all precedence in the annals of literature; 
and, with a few exceptions, perhaps no time is 
more unprofitably spent than that which is con* 



APPENDIX. 129 

sumed in the perusal of these superficial produc- 
tions : they generally contain a mutilated and 
extremely incorrect statement of the progress of 
literature, and the claims of particular works. 
They uniformly contradict each other, and some- 
times contradict themselves*. Their constant 
practice is to address the passions, and the pre- 
judices of men: but seldom do they appeal to 
their reason and judgment : yet our half-educated 
fine gentlemen, and our superficial scholars are 
infinitely indebted to these literary dogmatizers, 
from them they derive all their knowledge, and 
their sentiments in conversation are the mere 
echoes of the last Review, which they repeat 
in every company till the next month fur- 

* A curious instance of this occurs in a modem Review, the 
most atrocious for literary injustice, as well as the most defici- 
ent in literary talent, that has ever disgraced any age or coun- 
try, whose imposing title, were it not disclaimed by the Uni- 
versity, the name of whose city it has unwarrantably assumed, 
might have deceived some into an opinion that it was not the 
contemptible thing it really is. From some inexplicable cir- 
cumstance the same book crept into its pages twice. It is a 

sermon by a Mr. C . The first Review of this Sermon 

coldly and sufficiently commends it; and the author, no doubt, 
imagining that the Reviewer had now done with him, adorned 
an advertisement of his sermon with this sprig of praise. But 
the very day which announced to an admiring world that Mr, 
C — — . had been praised by the Oxford Review, declared also 
an " unco mournfu' " fact : the Oxford Review unbiushingly 
tells the public, that the Sermon, which the month before it had 
commended, was reaily below notice ! 

G5 



130 APPENDIX. 

nishes them with new materials. Whether this 
is an evil or not I will leave the judicious reader 
to decide. If Reviews were what they ought, and 
what they profess to be, the interests of know- 
ledge would certainly be advanced by them. But 
destitute as these publications generally are of 
character and principle, their circulation must 
be injurious. For every man who reads a Re- 
view is not acquainted with its secret history : 
he knows not the degree of credit which is due 
to its assertions, nor where it is likely to be 
partial. He reads it probably for information, 
and not for amusement, and therefore he must 
often be led to erroneous conclusions, and to make 
a false estimate of the passing works of the day. 

I am sorry that I cannot exculpate the Annual 
Review from the general charges which I have 
levelled against most of its contemporaries; yet as 
in many respects it is greatly superior to nearly 
all of them, I consider it upon the whole as a 
respectable adversary : but I hope, when I prove 
against the individual who wrote the Critique on 
my Essay, that he is entirely inadequate to the 
task, that he is rather a tyro than a magistrate, 
that Mr: Aiken will, in charity to him, and his 
own reputation, prohibit him from writing in 
the Annual Review till he is convinced that jus- 
tice is a virtue, and knowledge and integrity 
are essential to a reviewer. 



-APPENDIX. 131 

For the sake of perspicuity, I shall class my 
animadversions on this Critique under the 
following particulars : — false assertions — glaring 
contradictions — ■ inconclusive reasonings — and 
unjnst censures. 

In a critique of a few pages it is not a little 
remarkable, that a man so very liberal in his cen- 
sures on another, and who boasts fbo of " Mo- 
ral tolerance," should betray the most palpable 
ignorance of the subject which he professes 
to discuss. Ignorance, the more inexcusable 
because it is issued from the chair of critical 
legislation. 

His assertions are made without proof, 
and contrary to fact. I am accused by him 
of having indulged myself in the wildest, 
strangest, most untenable, assertions. But this 
will never be credited after an impartial rea- 
der is acquainted .with the first paragraph 
io which he commences his attack. Madam 
Thalia is infinitely indebted to her knight-errant, 
he has espoused her cause in the true spirit of 
Quixotism, and his extravagance of assertion can- 
not be exceeded. For my part, I cannot hel|> won- 
dering at the temerity of a man who could dare 
to write such a paragraph as the following, be- 
fore he had applied the torch to the funereal pile 
of history, and destroyed the records of the days 
that are past* 



132 APPENDIX. 

"An attack on the Stage is alike hostile to 
public instruction, to public morality, and to 
public happiness. The Fathers of the Christian 
church, by conspiring to suppress the Theatres 
of Greece and Rome, rebarbarized Europe, and 
condemned the victims of their mischievous 
tuition to a millenium of ignorance, vassalage, 
and woe." 

The first assertion, that the Theatre is the 
school of public instruction, morality, and hap- 
piness, may easily be established, or refuted, by 
the annals of Theatrical history. 

The Theatre of Greece, this writer himself 
denounces as the most licentious of any upon 
record; he invites me to read through the Eccle- 
siazousai of Aristophanes; I suppose to convince 
me of the importance of the Grecian stage to 
public instruction, public morality, and public 
happiness. Let the greater part of the Dramatic 
writings of Greece and Rome be examined, and 
we shall see what kind of instruction they con- 
veyed ; and let the effect of a passion for scenic 
representations be traced in the history of the 
common wealths where it was indulged, and we 
shall find the reverse of this author's assertion to 
be true. The defenders of the Stage have been 
the most dangerous enemies of public morals 
and happiness. The lessons taught by Aristo- 
phanes on the Grecian stage absolutely destroyed 



APPENBIX. 133 

all sense of public virtue and decency; and it 
has been justly observed by Mrs. Moore, " That 
the profane and impure Aristophanes was almost 
adored, while the virtue of Socrates not only- 
procured him a violent death, but the poet, by 
making the philosopher contemptible to the 
populace, paved the way to his unjust sentence 
by the judges. Nay, perhaps the delight which 
the Athenians took in the impious and offen- 
sively loose wit of this Dramatic poet rendered 
them more deaf to the voice of that virtue which 
w r as taught by Plato; and of that liberty in which 
they had once gloried, and which Demosthenes 
continued to thunder in their unheeding ears. 
Their rage for sensual pleasure rendered them a 
fit object for the projects of Philip, and a ready 
prey to the attacks of Alexander* In lamenting 
however the corruptions of the Theatre in 
Athens, justice compels us to acknowledge that 
her immortal tragic poets, by their chaste and 
manly compositions, furnish a noble exception. 
In no country have decency and purity, and, to 
the disgrace of Christian countries let it be added, 
have morality, and even piety, been so generally 
prevalent in any Theatrical compositions as in 
what — 

w Her lofty grave tragedians taught 
In chorus or Iambic, teachers best 
Of moral prudence/' 



|^4 * APPENDIX. 

Yet in paying a just and warm tribute to the 
moral excellencies of these sublime Dramatists 
is not an answer provided to that long agitated 
question, whether the Stage can be indeed made 
a school of morals. No question had ever a 
fairer chance for decision than was here afforded. 
If it be allowed that there never was a more 
profligate city than Athens; if it be equally in- 
disputable that never country possessed more 
unexceptionable Dramatic poets than Eschylus, 
Sophocles, and Euripides. If the same city thus 
at once produced the best physicians and the 
worst patients, what is the result? Do the 
Athenian annals record that any class or condi- 
tion of citizens were actually reformed by con- 
stantly frequenting, we had almost said, by con- 
stantly living, in the Theatre. 1 ' 

If reforming the world have been the object of 
the Theatre, no institution has been so singu- 
larly unfortunate. This "Academy, where grown 
persons assemble to study propriety*," has ge- 
nerally taught them a very different lesson. 

This writer acknowledges that there are some 
cases in which the Theatre teaches the grossest 
and most dangerous immorality; and it is to be 
observed, that his standard of morals is not very 
refined, or exalted. Those virtues, which are 
exclusively Christian, he abandons as little 

* Annual Review 



APPENDIX. 135 

weaknesses. Yet, according to his very la xcode 
-of morals, the Theatre is not always the school 
"in which morality is taught. He confesses that 
some plays irradiate the suicide of public cha- 
racter; and I suppose he will acknowledge, that 
Douglas, and several others, irradiate the sui- 
cide of private character. But is this, he asks, 
a formidable evil? Not perhaps to those who 
believe that death is an eternal sleep. It is also 
conceded that some comedies soften down adul- 
tery ; but then this is the excuse furnished for the 
comic poet. At the time these plays were writ- 
ten, " It had not been discovered in how high a 
degree domestic happiness and social order de- 
pend on conjugal fidelity." But why was it not 
then discovered ? and if it is now discovered, why 
is it that we have daily so many cases of crim. 
con ; and that those plays on the Engligh stage 
which soften down adultery are the most popu- 
lar ? And may I not ask, do not these concessions 
give up the point? What are we to think of a 
school of morals hi which the pupils are as often 
likely to learn vice as virtue- — as often did I say? 
If this writer will condescend t6 examine mi- 
nutely the ancient and the modem D^ima, he 
will find that there are very few plays wr/ch teach 
a pure morality, and that the influence of every 
Theatre which has hitherto existed, has givei: 
a preponderance to the other scale; if he does no' 



136 APPENDIX. 

know this, he ought to have known it before he 
had volunteered his services in its defence. If 
the Theatre were what this critic would insinu- 
ate it to be, every criminal, every licentious play 
must necessarily be excluded from it: instead 
of which it furnishes no barrier whatever against 
performances the most impure. It is notorious 
that its tendency is directly on the side of vice; 
and this tendency it is always necessary to check 
with a strong hand. If the audience will endure 
licentiousness, the players are ever ready to fur- 
nish it; nay, to overstock the market. Yet to 
attack the Stage is alike hostile to public in- 
struction, to public morality, and public happi- 
ness. 

But we are informed, " That by conspiring to 
suppress the Theatres of Greece and Rome, the 
Christian Fathers rebarbarized Europe, and 
condemned the victims of their mischievous 
tuition to a millenium of ignorance, vassalage, 
and w r oe." 

Here are no less than three gross violations of 
the truth of history. The Theatre is exhibited 
as the depository of science — the palladium of 
liberty — and the source of consolation and joy. 
The Fathers are accused of rebarbarizing Europe 
—. and it is said that they accomplished this 
event by suppressing the Theatres of Greece 
and Rome. May I not fairly retort upon my 



APPENDIX, 137 

adversary, " That it requires no small share of 
moral tolerance to argue respectfully with a 
writer w r ho founds his arguments on assertions 
like these." 

By attempting to suppress the Theatre, we are 
first assured, that the Christian fathers introduced 
a millenium of ignorance. The Theatre then must 
have been the depository of science, and it must 
have been exclusively so. But was it indeed the 
only light which shone in this dark world ? where 
then was the grove of Plato, and the Lycseum of 
Aristotle? where the great luminaries of the Hea- 
then world? where the oracles of heaven and the 
Sun of righteousness ? But what are these when 
compared with theTheatres of Greece and Rome? 
these indeed continued to shine in ail their glory, 
but in the estimation of this critic, it was a twink- 
ling glory little to be preferred to the blackness of 
total night. The Theatre was opposed, and a 
millenium of ignorance stole upon the world. 
But if we may judge of the past by the present, 
this sounding gasconade will evaporate. What 
serious loss should we sustain if all the literature 
of the English Drama were annihilated ? Should 
we be rebarbarized? If there were not a piay in 
our language, what mighty injury would be the 
consequence? to the cause of morality and reli- 
gion it would be a clear advantage ; and as for 
useful knowledge, it never depended upon a 



13S APPENDIX. 

Theatre, nor has ever been beneficially connected 
with it. And of modern plays, correct taste, 
and mental dignity are ashamed. The Theatre 
of our day seems destined to give immortality to 
Mother Goose, Tom Thumb, and Jack the Giant- 
killer :— -what was formerly the sport of children, 
is now the amusement of men, and the time 
when Gog and Magog, are to revisit the earth 
seems- to be arrived.* 

But we are informed, that a millenium of 
vassalage was another consequence of the hos- 
tility of the fathers to the Theatres of Greece 
and Rome. The Theatre then must have been 
the palladium of liberty. But the fact is, what 
this writer would exhibit as the palladium of 
liberty was its grave; at least this was undoubt- 
edly true of the Athenian Stage. Pericles took 
this effectual method to supplant his competitors 
in the Athenian state, and to secure his own 
influence, he established a fund from the public 
money to support the Theatre, and to pay for 
the admission of the populace, and made it a 

* The Mahometans believe, that when Gog and Magog are 
to come, the race of men will have dwindled to such littleness, 
that a shoe of one of the present generation will serve them for 
a house, [f this prophecy be typical of the intellectual dimi- 
nution of the species, judgiug from the present state of the 
Theatre we must believe that Gog and Magog may soon. 
be expected. 



APPENDIX. 139 

capital crime to divert this fund to any other 
service. " He scrupled not, (says Mrs. Moore) in 
order to secure their attachment tojhis person, and 
government, by thus buying them with their own 
money, effectually to promote their natural levity 
and idleness, and to corrupt their morals." Once 
inspire n people with a rage for amusement and 
shows, and they will soon yield up their liberty, 
and become the vassals of any tyrant, who will 
thus encircle them with the silken cords of 
voluptuousness and pleasure. And with regard to 
the happiness which is diffused by a Theatre, it is 
imaginary, uncertain and evanescent. The fever of 
the passions may produce a delirium of joy; but 
it is only a delirium, and when a man awakes to 
sober reflection, the phantoms of a Theatre will 
not charm away the evil spirit. That man 
is indeed a pitiable object whose happiness de- 
pends on the existence of a Theatre. — This how- 
ever is matter of mere opinion, and if an indi- 
vidual chooses to say that he cannot be happy 
without the pleasures of the Stage, I will not 
dispute with him; but I maintain, that if the 
Theatre were abolished, and there were no other 
existing causes of woe, the world need not, and 
would not be miserable. If the Christian fathers 
therefore, had actually abolished the Theatres of 
Greece and Rome, Europe by that means would 
not have been rebarbarized.— It was not the de- 



140 APPENDIX. 

struction of the Theatre that introduced the mil- 
lenium of ignorance, vassalage, and woe. 

But their dark and dismal empire must be as- 
cribed to other persons and other causes. The 
fathers of the Christian church are guiltless here, 
and the Theatre might have perished without 
the extinction of one ray of intellectual light or 
civil liberty, had not the demons of superstition 
and priestly power spread over the western 
continent their raven wing, overwhelming the 
earth with a darkness more horrible than that 
of Egypt. The fathers of the church were the 
enlightened friends of freedom and of man ; 
they forged no chains for the human mind, 
but they loosed the bands of superstition. They 
were the aposties of a pure morality. They 
attempted to allay the fever of the passions, and 
to restore man to the dignity of reason. They 
indeed attacked the Stage, because it was 
hostile to the best interests of humanity; and 
in this conduct it will afterwards appear this 
Reviewer justifies them : he acknowledges that 
Collier and the Abbe Clement " Aped their 
anger without their provocation :" yet pro- 
voked as they were by immorality and licentious- 
ness, their attempts to suppress those evils con- 
demned the victims of their mischievous tuition 
to a miilenium of ignorance, vassalage, and woe. 
Not to notice this palpable inconsistency, we 



APPENDIX. 141 

may inquire, is this charge applicable to them 
in any degree? Did they rebarbarize Eu- 
rope? Surely not. They had their pecu- 
liarities and their infirmities, for they were 
men. And had the subsequent ministers of the 
Gospel displayed their faith and purity, the 
Theatre must have been abolished, but the rays 
of civilization and science would have shed a 
divine lustre over the habitable earth. — The 
reign of barbarism commenced with the papal 
power, the domination of ecclesiastical over civil 
government; the establishment of the Pontificate 
at Rome, with the doctrines of the Holy See, 
were the sole causes which produced the mil- 
lenium of darkness, which is here ascribed to 
the attempts of the Christian Fathers to abolish 
the Theatres of Greece and Rome. 

May we not be permitted to ask, if the de- 
struction of a taste for scenic representation^ 
among the pupils of the Christian Fathers, over- 
spread Europe with intellectual and moral dark- 
ness, how was it, that when the Theatre became 
a favourite amusement in Catholic countries, that 
it did not pour forth upon them the light of day ? 
To the reformation of Luther we are to ascribe 
the revival of learning in Europe: that stupen- 
dous event, like a tempest, purified the moral 
atmosphere from the noxious vapours of super- 
stition and ignorance ; burst asunder the chains 



142 APPENDIX* 

of vassalage, and introduced new heavens and a 
new earth. Beholding these astonishing, these 
happy changes, and remembering the high cha- 
racter which our critic has given the Theatre, 
we naturally expect that it had some interesting 
and important share in chasing away the dark- 
ness of the night. The Theatre certainly was 
not inactive, it was extremely zealous, but it was? : 
to advocate the cause of ignorance, vassalage, 
and woe; it was to rivet the chains which Popery 
had forged. It w r as, if possible, to cover with 
contempt the reformation, with its heroic apostle, 
the immortal Luther. It was not therefore to . 
the Stage Europe w r as indebted for her happy 
change of circumstances in the sixteenth century. 
But on the contrary, that school of instruction :. 
of morality and happiness exerted all its powers- 
that darkness and misery might be perpetual. 

All historians uniformly mention the Theatre 
as a mighty engine, in producing the destruction 
of a refined people. But the emancipation of a 
people from barbarism, its growth in the liberal, 
arts and useful knowledge, are always ascribed 
to other causes. None but a half-educated man 
would have ventured to make such assertions as 
those which I have now combated. One would 
imagine, that the Theatre is the only seminary 
in which this Reviewer has been taught. He calls. 
Tragedy a lecture on history; and he seems to 



APPENDIXc 143 

liave studied it in no oilier school. It is his mis- 
fortune : I would advise him seriously to, sit down 
to this important study. I would recommend to 
him the history of the Christian church, as the 
first object of regard; and if he would deign to 
weigh the evidences in favour of Christianity, 
and to examine, with profound attention, the 
Christian Scriptures, he might be a better writer, 
and a better man. 

Another false assertion I will notice, and con- 
clude this part of the subject. It is said by this 
writer, p. 573, that Collier aped the anger of the 
ancient fathers, without their provocation; in 
other words, Collier censured the English Stage 
without reason; his censure was ridiculous 
because there was no object to excite it. This 
is only another evidence that the morality of our 
critic is very accommodating : indeed his virtue 
so strongly resembles vice, that any man who is 
not a sophist would confound them together. 
If Collier was angry without provocation, a vir- 
tuous mind may pass through the most nauseous 
scenes of impurity, which are to be found in the 
metropolis, with calm unruffled composure. On 
this subject I will call to my assistance three 
auxiliaries, men I imagine quite as creditable for 
knowledge and talents as this zealous advocate 
of -the Stage — Dr. Johnson, Lord Kaimes, and Mr. 
Cumberland : each testifies that Collier was not 



144 APPENDIX* 

angry without provocation. Speaking of Collier's 
attack on the Stage, Johnson remarks, " His 
onset was violent; those passages which, while 
they stood single had passed with little notice, 
when they were accumulated and exposed toge- 
ther, excited horror; the wise and the pious 
caught the alarm, and the nation wondered why 
it had so long suffered irreligion and licentious- 
ness to be openly taught at the public charge." 
Lord Kaimes, referring to the age of Col* 
lier, has ventured the following observations, 
and they are strikingly in point. " The 
licentious court of Charles the second, among 
its many disorders, engendered a pest, the 
virulence of which subsists to this day. The 
English Comedy, copying the manners of the 
court, became extremely licentious, and conti- 
nues so with very little softening. It is there an 
established rule to deck out the chief characters 
with every vice in fashion, however gross. But 
as such characters, viewed in a true light, would 
be disgustful, care is taken to disguise their de- 
formity under the embellishments of wit, spright- 
liness, and good-humour, which, in mixed com- 
pany, make a capital figure. It requires not 
time nor much thought to discover the poisonous 
influence of such plays. A young man of figure, 
emancipated at last from the severity and re- 
straint of a college education, repairs to the 



APPENDIX. 145 

capital, disposed to every sort of excess. Tie 
playhouse becomes his favourite amusement ; 
and he is enchanted with the gaiety and 
splendor of the chief personages. The disgust 
which vice gives him at first, soon wears off, to 
make way for new notions, more liberal in his 
opinion; by which a sovereign contempt of reli- 
gion, and a declared war upon the chastity of 
wives, maids, and widows are converted from 
being infamous vices, to be fashionable virtues* 
The infection spreads gradually through all ranks, 
and becomes universal. How gladly would I 
listen to any one who would undertake to prove 
that what I have been describing is chimerical! 
But the dissoluteness of our young people of 
birth will not suffer me to doubt of its reality. 
Sir Harry Wildaif has completed many a rake; 
and in the " Suspicious Husband/! Ranger, the 
humble imitator of Sir L^arry, has had no slight 
influence in spreading that character. Of the 
fashionable women tinctured with the playhouse 
morals, who would not be the sprightly, the 
witty, though dissolute Lady Townly, before the 
cold, the sober, though virtuous Lady Graced 
How odious ought those writers to be, who thus 
spread infection through their country: employ- 
; the talents they have from their Maker most 
traiterously against him, by endeavouring to cor- 
rupt and disfigure his creatures! If the Come* 

H 



146 APPENDIX. 

dies of Congreve did not rack him with remorse 
in his last moments, he must have been lost to 
all sense of virtue 1 

The testimony of Cumberland, a writer of 
plays, much more moral and decent than most 
of his contemporaries of the same profession, 
with regard to Congreve and the popular 
writers of that age, is very characteristic and 
conclusive. 

" Congreve, Farquhar, and some others, have 
made vice and villainy so playful and amusing* 
that either they could not find in their hearts to 
punish them ; or not caring how wicked they 
were, so long as they w r ere witty, paid no atten- 
tion to what became of them. ShadwelFs co- 
medy is little better than a brothel." 

I now pass on to an instance or two in which this 
writer contradicts himself; first premising that 
in another article, " Clarksor/s Portraiture of 
Quakerism," the Quakers are justified by the 
Reviewer in prohibiting to their youth the diver- 
sions of the Stage, p. 598. 

" They (the Quakers) object to the effects of 
histrionism upon the moral character of the actor, 
asneccssarily tending to sophisticate him. In this 
there may be some truth, though probably not 
much. They object to the usual morals of 
the Drama with good reason. Its false he- 
roism, false honour, false sentimentability 



APPENDIX. 147 

are often abominable; and the custom of making 
love, the main business, is more mischievous than 
either/' Is it not amusing to contrast with this, 
the fervid exclamation of my friendly critic: — 
" Ye feel not for others, ye care not for the pub- 
lic, who hold such a discipline (attendance at a 
Theatre) indifferent to the evolution of the sub- 
limest virtues." Gentle reader, do not these re- 
viewers, which are only separated from each other 
by a few pages, admirably agree? However this 
is nothing remarkable; this writer can with won- 
derful adroitness contradict himself. 

He informs us in the commencement of his 
paper, that the Christian fathers rebarbarized 
Europe, by endeavouring to suppress the Theatres 
of Greece and Rome. In p. 571 he tells us, that 
the Grecian theatre was the most impudent on 
record: by impudent, he means impure, un- 
chaste, and licentious. In another, p. 573, he 
justifies the Christian fathers for that opposition 
which he before condemned. " No such public 
-•hows (says he) exist now, as those against which 
Tertullian, Augustine, Valerius Maximus, and 
other ancients have left their protest." Either 
this writer palpably contradicts himself or he 
means to assert, that licentiousness, folly, and 
crime are synonymous with public knowledge, 
public morality, and public happiness. One 
more instance of contradiction I shall notice, and 
H 2 



148 APPENDIX. 

proceed to the inconclusive reasoning of my 
opponent. 

In p. 570 he recommends the Stage," Because 
by exhibiting dances and pantomimes, it tends 
to inspire a taste for graceful exercises, that is, it 
inflames a passion for dancing." In the very 
next page, this argument in favour of the Theatre, 
is rendered of no effect. " Think of the tumult 
of lascivious ardour which glows panting at every 
extremity of the frame, during the brisk pulsa- 
tions, and consentaneous whirls of the embracing 
dancers. Recollect that in every country, danc- 
ing girls form the select basis of the prostitute 
population ; and if you have a wife, sisters, or 
daughters, hesitate whether you will often en- 
courage or indulge so wanton a delight. " Come 
then to the Theatre." For what? that you may 
be inspired with a taste for " These graceful ex- 
ercises, these consentaneous whirls?" All this is 
very consistent, and worthy the advocate of such 
a cause.— But let us now attend to the arguments 
by which the Theatre is defended. 

" The Stage,weare informed, is a succedaneum 
for neglected education ; it is the academy where 
grown persons assemble to study propriety." 
This is gratuitous assumption, and rather forms 
a serious objection against the Stage, than an 
argument in its favour.-— For who are the persons 
to be instructed? Those who have grown into 



APPENDIX. 149 

life without having learnt propriety of beha- 
viour; those whose education has been defec- 
tive. — Now persons of this description are usually 
confined to the lower orders of society; persons 
whose education is just suited to their avocations 
and pursuits, and who can derive no possible 
advantage from the instructions which are con- 
veyed at a Theatre, but who, on the contrary, 
would be worse for such-mending. The ignorant, 
the vulgar, and the empty-minded, the hopeful 
pupils in this school of public virtue, are to be 
exalted into tragic heroes, to talk fustian, and to 
be unfitted for their sober and legitimate employ- 
ments; and as they are excluded from fashionable 
circles, they are to be taught to ape fashionable 
manners, as they are extra tly exhibited in 

genteel comedy. Is not this a very powerful 
argument against the Stage, that it tends to make 
a very useful branch of the community dis- 
satisfied with their humble condition; that it 
inspires them with an ambition to be what they 
are not, and what they were never intended to 
be by the God of Providence. Scholars and gen- 
tlemen are previously and completely educated 
before they enter into life. In this respect the 
Theatre can be of no advantage to them. And to 
all the rest of mankind it must be an evil of con- 
siderable magnitude. Tragedy is nothing better 
than romance, and cannot be depended on as 

113 



150 APPENDIX. 

historical truth ; and if comedy exhibit the man- 
ners of fashionable life, it exhibits its follies and 
its vices too; and if it be desirable to extend the 
boundary of these, the Theatre is certainly an 
admirable school for the purpose. 

But we are told, " That it is at the Theatre 
the selfish feelings learn their insignificance, and 
the generous their beauty. In cases of colli- 
sion between personal and general interest, the 
public wish must be that any one should sacri- 
fice himself to the rest. Hence the will of mul- 
titudes is naturally virtuous raid philanthropic. 
It is only from ignorance of what is for the uni- 
versal good, that their praise is bestowed upon 
hurtful conduct. A habit of deference for the 
instinctive sentiments of a playhouse audience is 
likely to operate beneficially and to invigorate 
the good inclinations. Some persons grow up 
benevolent who are also recluse; but they will 
commonly be found to place merit in forwarding 
the ends of a sect or party, distinct from the 
common service of mankind. The Theatre 
breaks in upon such prejudices, and unfolds to 
the philanthropist the natural claims of society, 
the comprehensive sympathies of human nature, 
the feelings of unsophisticated man." I imagine 
the writer conceived this to be a very fine piece 
of reasoning : it is indeed so subtle, that not one 
in ten of a playhouse audience would be able 



APPENDIX. 161 

eoraiprehend it. How it is that the Theatre un- 
folds to the philanthropist the natural claims of 
society, it is not in my power to conceive, any more 
than would a lord mayors show, or any popular 
spectacle which would convene a multitude. 

To teach a philanthropist benevolence, is also 
perfectly gratuitous; if the Theatre indeed could 
transform the character of a miser, there would 
be this one solitary ground on which it might 
be defended : but covetousness, like the dramatic 
mania, is an incurable disease. It is a curious, 
and rather an uncommon notion, that the will of 
multitudes is naturally virtuous and philanthro- 
pic. But I imagine, in support of this assertion, 
the Reviewer will refer us to the internal history 
of revolutionary France, when the will of the 
multitude was law. Or to our theatrical annals, 
in which it will appear that praise is almost 
uniformly bestowed on hurtful conduct. But 
this probably may arise from ibvincible igno- 
rance, which even this school of morals cannot 
subdue. 

The instinctive sentiments ot a playhouse audi- 
ence, are the instinctive sentiments of a depraved 
heart. They can sympathize with an adulteress, 
and laugh at a deoauehee: ribaldry is their diver- 
sion, and profaneness their sport. And the genero- 
sity which is acquired at a playhouse, is an indis- 
criminate extravagance, the effect of mere feeling 
H 4 



152 APPENDIX. 

without principle. I suppose Howard never 
visited a Theatre to learn benevolence; nor have 
the philanthropic friends of religion, which are 
to be found in the various sects and parties of 
the Christian church, been at all the less insen- 
sible to the comprehensive sympathies of human 
nature by not witnessing on the Stage the feel- 
ings of unsophisticated man. The most active 
friends of the abolition of the Slave Trade, were 
those Who perhaps never entered a Theatre;* 
and their unwearied exertions in promoting this 
glorious object, could not be to forward the 
views of a sector party, distinct from the com- 
mon service of man. And it is a question worthy 
of discussion, whether such a thing as pure, dis- 
interested benevolence is to be found among the 
numerous supporters of a licentious Stage, who 
must be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of 
God. 

I cannot forbear quoting a strange rhapsody, 
in which my opponent is pleased to take the 
other side of the question, and by his own con- 
cessions to invalidate all his former arguments in 
defence of the Stage. Hitherto he has exhibited 
the Stage as a school of morals ; we now behold 
it in a new character, the advocate of adultery 
and crime." But then, instead of an instructor it 

* Mr. Wilberforce has written against the Stage, and tUe 
Quakers never visit the Theatre/ 



APPENDIX. 155 

becomes a pupil, and it is to be taught by the 
audience. A few virtuous individuals are to 
assemble, for the express purpose of frowning 
this teacher of a pure morality into a sense of- 
propriety. But let him speak for himself: " As 
there are some tragedies which soften down 
suicide, so there are some comedies which soften 
down adultery. Moliere's George Dandin is one, 
to look no nearer home. In Moliere's time, and 
in the unrefined nations, it had not yet been dis- 
covered in how high a degree domestic happi- 
ness and social order depend on conjugal fidelity. 
It was not yet notorious, that a husband will 
submit to no privations, and will undertake no 
labour, no hazard to provide for the children of 
a wife whom he has suspected. It was not yet 
notorious, that filial, as well as parental affection 
vanishes, where its object is uncertain or infa- 
mous. The son disdains at home, without scru- 
ple, the frown of a stranger, or the tears of a 
harlot : the daughter forsakes, in their old age, 
the one parent because he is not akin, and the 
other because she has not a character. It was not * 
yet calculated how short-lived is the pleasure of 
gallantry; how long-lived its miserable and irrevo- 
cable effect. Beauty lasts but an olympiad, the 
constancy of a gallant but a summer ; and for this 
summer, were it to be spent in the paradise of Ma- 
homet, without fear, and without remorse, it would 

H 5 



L54 APPENDIX. 

not be worth while to endanger, far less fling a- 
way,thirty or forty years of mutual confidence and 
friendship. This, where there are no children, 
and where there are, mothers, if such there be, 
who for a moment have meditated, to snap these 
ties asunder, how think you to buy again those 
endearing charities, and purest pleasures of your 
nature — that sympathy of family aifection, for- 
bidden for ever to the hearth polluted by the 
adulterer? The degradation of rank, the disso- 
lution of acquaintance, are comparatively feeble 
considerations. Let the comic poet therefore be 
called to. a severe responsibility, when he seems 
to dally with the holiest bonds, which hold our 
hearts together. Let the matron rise and quit the 
Playhouse, with her daughter, if her sacred pre- 
sence is profaned by coarse ribaldry, or syste- 
matic licentiousness. • Genius can be so taught, 
that unless he is the slave of virtue, he must be- 
come the outcast of fame ; that no works of art 
endure, but those which advocate the enduring 
interests of mankind ; and that the true road to 
permanent praise on earth is to merit the favour 
of a retributive Deity." 

From the closeof this paragraph it appears that 
this writer is nearly as good a Christian as he is a 
reasoncr. What shall we think of a school which 
requires so much caution in its pupils, and which 
endanger^ their social and domestic happiness? 



APPENDIX. 155 

Gan a more powerful argument be brought 
against the Stage, than that it sometimes dallies 
with the holiest bonds ; and that a combination 
of virtuous individuals is necessary to shame it 
by their reproaches into the bounds of decency ? 
Is this writer aware, that the remedy he proposes 
will never be applied. Exemplary characters 
will not visit a Theatre to cry these comedies 
down; and genius has so long been taught, that 
to be successful on the Stage, he must be licen- 
tious, that he will not heed the frowns of a few 
virtuous individuals. And what virtuous matron 
would carry her daughter to a place where it 
was probable her sacred presence might be pro- 
faned by coarse ribaldry and systematic licenti- 
ousness. The regeneration of the Theatre has 
been attempted again and again. I have proved 
in my Lssay that it cannot essentially be changed ; 
that from the characters of those who support 
it, and the nature of its constitution, it must be 
evil : it has long been reasoned out of existence, 
and it can only be defended by degraded talents, 
and the most egregious sophistry. 

But it is time for me to defend myself from 
the unjust censures which some assertions in the 
Essay have provoked. Assertions which are de- 
nominated the wildest, strangest, most untenable, 
It is very easy to string together a number of. 
5uperlatives ; and with a sweeping censure to 



156 APPENDIX. 

'condemn; it is not so easy to reason, and to 
refute. 

Let us consider what these assertions are, and 
fairly meet the charge of the critic. To him in- 
deed they might appear wild, strange, and unte- 
nable ; for he, no doubt, sat down to the vo- 
lume, resolving that an enemy to the Stage 
should receive no mercy at his hands. But it 
sometimes happens, that when a critic would 
wound another he stabs himself; and this is par- 
ticularly the case when victory, instead of truth, 
is the object of the contest. 

With regard to the origin of the Stage, I have 
nothing new to advance; I am not ashamed 
again to declare, that the Theatre has ever owed 
its origin to religion. But I cannot possibly 
conceive how my admitting this can injure 
the side of the question which I have espoused. 
My Reviewer thinks the clergy acted wisely 
in making religion the subject of dramatic 
representation. This however is a singular 
opinion of his own, unsupported by any reason- 
ing; but my opinion is- directly the reverse of 
this; and notwithstanding his sagacious sneers, 
I am not ashamed to avow it; and were I called 
upon to defend that opinion, it would not lead 
ine to advocate the cause of undisguised popery, 
and the shocking innovations with which it stript 
the Christian worship of its purity and simpli- 



APPENDIX. 157 

city: the other side of the question inevitably 
involves in it this consequence; and yet, judg- 
ing from this Review, we must conclude that its 
writer is an infidel rather than a papist. 

It is asserted, that the object of my second 
chapter is to inquire into the causes which have 
contributed to the success of the Stage, with a 
view to prove that civilization, advanced beyond 
its zenith, occasions this popularity. A reader 
of this Review, unacquainted with the Essay on 
the Stage, would certainly imagine that this was 
. the leading, if not the only, design of the se-cond 
chapter. However, this is only mentioned among 
a variety of other things, equally potent in con- 
tributing to the support and influence of the 
Theatre. But because it is mentioned, I am, it 
seems, liable to censure. The assertion is denied. 
Perhaps the figure which I employed to convey 
my meaning is liable to some exception. But 
what I intended by it is sufficiently obvious from 
a sentence which almost immediately follows; 
and when an author explains himself, advantage 
should not be taken of a single sentence, or mode 
of expression; his meaning should be obviously 
stated, and if erroneous, severely judged. 

When I mentioned civilization, advanced be- 
yond its zenith, as one cause of the success of 
the stage, the ground on which I stood must 
have been evident from the connexion. In the 



158 APTENDIX\ 

very next' page I asserted, " There is a certain 
point in civilization, beyond which it contributes 
not to -a nation's prosperity or happiness; and 
that point is the utmost limit of refinement con- 
sistent with virtue. Now that point I consi- 
dered as my zenith; and let me ask this Critic, 
had not Athens advanced far beyond it at the- 
time of the rivalship of Sophocles and Euripi- 
des? And I imagine it will not for a moment 
be doubted that Rome was far, very far, on the. 
decline when Ovid and Julius C<esar assisted in. 
translating Greek tragedies for the Roman stage. 
I asserted also in the very same page, in illus- 
trating my meaning on this subject, that when 
the sinews of Roman and Athenian virtues were 
the strongest, the people had neither time nor 
inclination to regard the diversions of the bulge : 
and with regard to Rome, I quoted Horace to 
confirm my assertion: — see page 2 and 3. The 
whole passage I will here transcribe; and if my. 
Critic pleases, he may enter the lists with the 
Roman satirist 

Tibia non, ut nunc, oricbalco vincta, tubacque 
jtmula • sed tenuis, simplexque foramine pauco 
Aspirare, et adesse choris erat utilis, atque 
Kondum spissa nimis complere sedilia tialu- 
Quo sane populus numerabilis, utpote parvus, 
TA fnigi, eastusque, verecuudusque coibat. 
Postquam ccepit agros extendere victor- ct urbem 
L%tior amplecti raurus 3 vino que diurno 



APPENDIX- . 159 

PJacari Genius festis impune diebus ; 
Accessit uumerisque inodisque licentia major. 

Horace ars Poeiica. 

Thus it appears, while the Roman community 
was small, while its members were frugal, chaste, 
and modest, the Theatre was little frequented — 
it was not a national interest. A slender rude 
pipe was all that was necessary to concur with 
the chorus, and to fill the rows which were not 
then too crowded. But afterwarus, when con- 
quest enlarged the Roman territory, when it 
poured into the city the profusions of luxury, and 
enervated the people ; to gratify the sensual appe- 
tites without controul, became the disgraceful 
feature of their character who once were no- 
ble, simple, brave; the Theatre, the effeminate 
amusement which they once disdained, was 
made the favourite source of pleasure ; and then 
it was found expedient to satisfy the voracious 
appetite of a luxurious people, to introduce into 
its music and poetry greater licentiousness. 

In page 570 of the Review I am condemned 
for asserting " That the Athenians and Romans 
were more virtuous before they had a Theatre;" 
and with an air of triumph the Critic asks, 
" Can the gentleman name any Greek conspi- 
cuous for virtue who preceded Eschylus the 
tragedian? the Romans having had no archives 
u»til the year 450 after the foundation of the 



160 APPENDIX. 

city, nothing trust-worthy can be known of 
their earlier historical characters. In the year 
568 they had long had a Theatre, because in that 
year separate seats were first allotted to the 
senate and the people. The story of CuriusDen- 
tatus proves a iow state of public virtue; for it 
was then a matter of astonishment and admira- 
tion that a consul should refuse a bribe from the 
enemy's ambassador. In the time of Fabricius 
there wa« already a Theatre at Tarentum; 
whence, probably, after the peace with Pyrrhus, 
the institution came to Rome. Where then, 
unless in the bingle person of Fabricius, who, 
since he w r as invited to become the minister of 
Pyrrhus, must have been familiar with Greek 
language, and probably with the Greek drama, 
shall a fin^ specimen of Roman virtue be sought 
which preceded the establishment of the btage? 
It rather seems as if the heroic delineations of 
the dramatic poet were the models which gave 
origin to public virtue." 

The first question is, before I reply to this cu- 
rious statement, have I any where asserted that 
the Athenians and Romans were more virtuous 
before they had a Theatre: the sixth page of 
the first edition of the Essay is referred to; but 
there I can only find the following observation : 
— " Among the Romans, for a series of years, the 
dramatic art was little cultivated. At the time 



APPENDIX. 161 

of its first introduction the rigit| features of the 
old Roman character were strongly visible : but 
as these wore away, the Stage advanced' with 
rapid progress, extended more widely its influ- 
ence, and became, as at Athens, the fashion- 
able resort of the idle, the dissolute, and the 
gay . 

The next question is, What does the writer 
mean by the equivocal expression, " Had a 
Theatre, he ought to mean, and I imagine he 
does, a regular theatrical establishment, because 
it is impossible to argue on the influence of the 
Stage in those periods when it was without any 
peculiar character, and destitute of general inte- 
rest; or when it was the popular amusement for 
a few days on extraordinary occasions. Taking 
this for granted, I shall defend the declaration 
made in the sixth page, which I have now quoted, 
and reply to the strange assertions and reason- 
ings which it has produced. 

As I have in the passage referred to asserted no- 
thing respecting the Athenians, it is not necessary 

* In the chapter on the estimation in which the Theatre 
was held by philosophers, legislators, and divines, I have quoted 
from Augustine the following remark ; but this I only in f roduced 
to exhibit the opinion v of Augustine on the subjeci c F 1 beatre. 
•• The tricas artes virtus Romana nou noverat. - I do 

Dot feel myself responsible, though if it be necessary I will un- 
dertake to prove its truth, which, I think, sufficiently done ia 
this and a few subsequent pages. 



162 APPENDIX. 

forme to prove that they were more virtuous pre- 
vious to the establishment of a Theatre among 
them ;. and it will be observed, that with regard 
to the Romans, I have only declared, that among 
them, for a series of years, the dramatic art was 
little cultivated, and that the cause of this vras the 
rigid features of the old Roman character. And 
will this writer venture to affirm, that the Theatre 
had not to struggle with gn! at opposition before 
it could gain at Rome a conlplete establishment? 
Is he not aware of the jealousy with which every 
thing Grecian was at first received among the 
Romans? Does he not know that the republican 
spirit, which was a spirit of industry, frugality*, 
and indcpendence,constant!y opposed every thing- 
luxurious, and that it therefore considered the 
Theatre a most dangerous enemy to Rome. 
The Romans universally believed, that Greece 
destroyed her independence, and hurried herself 
into rum by her rage for theatrical and other 
effeminate amusements; and therefore it was 
that Cato asserted, " That the establishment of a 
regular Theatre would be to Rome a more dan- 
gerous Carthage .than that .which they had just 
destroyed." As a reason for the subsequent pro- 
gress of the Stage among the Romans, 1 re- 
marked, that as the rigid features of the old Ro- 
man character wore away, the Stage advanced 
with proportionate rapidity. I did not call these 



APPENDIX. 163 

rigid features by the distinguished name of vir- 
tue. In a Christian sense, this would have been 
impossible. But had I considered the term in 
its common and Heathenish acceptation, I might 
have declared, that Rome was virtuous, and that 
her virtue was the most powerful obstacle to the 
influence of the Stage : and had I asserted this, 
the Critic, who dignifies anger and resentment 
with the name of virtue, could have no just 
reason to blame me. 

What is usually understood by Roman virtue 
(and which was purity itself, when compared 
with the subsequent degeneracy of this once 
admirable people) flourished and decayed before 
the establishment of a Theatre : not till after the 
peace with Pyrrhus was any thing known at 
Rome of the Grecian, or any other Theatre. 
At the year 568, there was at Rome no regular 
theatrical establishment, whatever may be said 
of the allotment of separate seats to the senate 
and the people, in those temporary fabrics which 
were only reared to be in a few days demo- 
lished. The first dramatic poet of Rome, Livius 
Andronicus, lived about the year 514, U. C. that 
is, twenty-five years after the peace made with 
Pyrrhus. But .even then the Stage was not 
established among the Romans. After the de- 
struction of Carthage the policy of establishing 
a Theatre was questioned, and produced the re- 



164 APPEND IX. 

mark of Cato which I have before quoted, which 
fully proves, that in the year 621, from the foun- 
dation of the city, a Roman* theatrical establish- 
ment was unknown. Pompey the Great, who flou- 
rished immediately before his successful rival and 
competitor for power, Julius Caesar, was the first 
man who had power and predit enough to get a 
Theatre continued. Till his time it had to contend 
with insuperable difficulties. It was not a national 
interest; yet how many fine specimens of Roman 
virtue had appeared to delight, and to astonish 
mankind, long before the arrival of this eera. 
From the statement made in the Annual Review, 
the reader is led to conclude, that there was 
a theatrical establishment at Rome two centu- 
ries before such an establishment existed. The 
age of Fabricius also is stigmatized as being 
remarkably deficient in virtue, though in his own 
character he afforded the most striking specimen 
of public virtue upon record. But let any man 
read the pages of the Roman history which re- 
late to that period, and I will venture to allirm,. 
that so far from concluding that public virtue 
was at that time in a low state, he will be per- 
suaded, that the age of Faoricius was singularly 
eminent in producing virtuous men: — indeed so 
powerfully did this impress the mind of Gold- 
smitn, that after he has narrated the circum- 
stances of the war with Pyrrhus, and brought it 



APPENDIX. 165 

to a close he ventures to pay this just tribute 
to Roman virtue. — " In this manner ended tne 
war with Pyrrhus, after six years continuance. 
Through the whole of this, we tind the Romans 
acting a nobler part than in any former period: 
endeavouring to join the politeness of Greece to 
the virtuous austerity of their own manners. A 
spirit of frugality, contempt of wealth, and virtu- 
ous emulation, had spread itself over the whole 
senate. Fabricius not only brought poverty into 
fashion by his example, but punished all p- 
proaches to luxury by his authority as a magis- 
trate. About this time, in the censorship of 
Fabricius, Ruffinus, who had been twice a con- 
sul, and once a dictator, was turned out of the 
senate, and had a mark of infamy put upon his 
name, for no other offence than being possessed of 
ten pound of silver plate for the use of his table. 
By this love of temperance, and these successes in 
war, though the individuals were poor, the pub- 
lic was rich; the number of citizens was also 
increased to above two hundred thousand men 
capable of bearing arms; and the fame of the 
Roman name was so far extended, that Ptolemy 
Philadeiphus, King of Egypt, sent ambassadors 
to congratulate their success, and to entreat 
their alliance." 

At this period it will be remembered, accord- 
ing to the Reviewer's own confession, a Theatre 



16(5 APPENDIX. 

was unknown at Rome. The institution was 
not carried thither till after the peace with 
Pyrrhus, and it was imported, he says, from 
Tarentum. It may not be wholly irrelevant to 
iiiquire what glorious effects the Stage produced 
among the Tarentines, who, according to this 
writer, were destined to the high honour of com- 
municating to Rome this " Origin of public vir* 
titer 

When Pyrrhus marched with an army to their 
defence, he found the Tarentines in a most 
deplorable condition. " Upon his arrival at 
Tarentum (remarks the historian) his first care 
was to reform the people he came to succour; 
for observing a total dissolution of manners in 
this luxurious city, and how the inhabitants 
were rather occupied with the pleasures of bath- 
ing, feasting, and dancing, than in preparing for 
war; he gave orders to have all their. 

PLACES OF PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT SHUT UP. M 

Yet with all this weight of evidence against him, 
with facts which every school-boy knows staring 
him in the face, with an effrontery peculiarly his 
own, this Reviewer asks, " Where then, unless in 
the single person of Fabricius, who, since he was 
invited to becorne the minister of Pyrrhus, must 
have been familiar with Greek language, and 
probably with the Greek drama, shall a fine 
specimen of Roman virtue be sought which pre- 



APPENDIX. 1(57 

ceded the establishment of the Stager" And after 
this he adds in a sort of triumph, " It rather seems 
as if the heroic delineations of the dramatic poet 
were the models which gave origin to public 
virtue.'' On this last most curious discovery of 
the origin of public virtue, I would make a few 
observations. I would just remark, that these 
heroic delineations of the dramatic poet are those 
which were imported from Greece; from that 
Theatre which, by this writer, is denounced 
the most impudent of any upon record; and yet 
these impudent, these licentious delineations, 
Ci ft rather seems," were the models which gave 
origin to public virtue. I confess I have a much 
higher opinion of the Athenian Stage before the 
reign of Aristophanes while it was supported 
and adorned by the talents and virtues of Euri- 
pides and Sophocles than this Reviewer: but 
even the productions of these best of trage- 
dians I cannot consider as deserving the extra- 
vagant encomiums which are here passed with- 
out discrimination upon all the performances 
of the Grecian poets. Tragedy, this Reviewer 
asserts, is a lecture on history; that is, it is a 
heroic public spirited interesting delineation of 
human nature. Now if this definition be accu- 
rate, public virtue must have existed before it 
could be represented in the scenes of the drama. 
These delineations were not therefore the crea- 



168 APPENDIX. 

tures of the poels imagination, but they were 
exact representations of human nature, of some 
great and distinguished characters, who had 
lived and acted on the great stage of the world. 
They were rather mirrors than models; and " It 
rather seems," from the testimony of history 
and experience, that these theatrical represen- 
tations led the people to substitute admiration of 
virtue for virtue itself, and to waste that time in 
beholding a mere exhibition of the virtues of 
others, which they should have employed in ac- 
quiring excellences of their own, till a habit of 
idleness was induced, which laid them open to 
the artful designs of the comic poets, who gra- 
dually undermined their virtue, and made them 
slaves of licentiousness and folly. How other- 
wise are we to account for the unbounded influ- 
ence of Aristophanes, who almost, in their own 
age, chased the great tragedians from the Stage. 
This only proves, that a theatre is, in every view, 
a most dangerous establishment. Its very ten- 
dency to produce idleness in its best state was 
the seed of its degeneracy, and renders it an evil 
of awful magnitude. I think I may venture to 
affirm, that after the time the Stage became a 
general interest there is no striking instance of 
Athenian virtue; and yet if it were the model 
which gave origin to public virtue, the more 
general its influence, the more virtue ought to 



APPENDIX. 169 

abound among the people. And Rome was ra- 
pidly on the decline when Pompey reared the 
Theatre w r hich bore his name; nor could this 
important establishment arrest the progress of 
effeminacy and vice; but on the contrary, it 
accelerated the fall of the mistress of the world. 
I now proceed to mention another instance of 
unjust censure on sentiments advanced in the 
Essay. I am accused, page 570, of asserting., 
" That nations become enervated, emasculated, 
effeminate, and cowardly, by affording counte- 
nance to the Stage," and in this I am con- 
tradicted. It should, however, be recollected, 
that I had, in a preceding chapter placed 
wealth, luxury, and idleness among the causes 
of the success of the drama. These I consi- 
dered as tending to make a people effemi- 
nate, and thus to prepare them for the amuse- 
ments of the Stage : and having been thus pro* 
duced by luxury, idleness, and dissipation, it was 
but natural that the Theatre should bear the fea- 
tures of its parents, and contribute to spread 
their influence. To this reasoning, which is 
supported by facts the most striking in history, 
the Critic replies, " It suffices to oppose the in- 
stance of the modern French, who are the least 
enervated of the civilized nations, and the most 
regardful of the pleasures of the Theatre/' Then 

I 



110 APPENDIX. 

follows a learned disquisition on the causes of 
effeminacy, in which the writer very ingeniously 
cnotrives to aim a blow at the Puritanic Metho- 
dists of the modern world. 

There are (he observes) physical, and there 
are moral causes of effeminacy. He asserts, on the 
physical causes of effeminacy, the Stage has little 
effect: and its moral causes, he affirms, are 
chiefly to be sought in the opinions of cer- 
tain teachers, who advise that men should be 
enured to all the virtues of women ; that they 
should subdue anger and resentment; that they 
should cultivate patience and content. Now 
as courage is much connected with anger and 
with activity, it will generally be found, that the 
moral principles which attack these qualities 
will, in proportion as they prevail, diminish the 
mass of national bravery. In the ancient world, 
principles of this kind w r ere propagated by the 
Alexandrian Platonists, and their disciples, in 
alliance with an unintelligible mysticism: and in 
the modern world, principles of this kind are 
propagated by the Puritanic Methodists; in both 
cases with the obvious effect of diffusing a gentle 
humane unresisting temper, running over with 
benevolence, empty of courage. In replying to 
this morceau of criticism and argument, I beg 
leave first to quote the passage from the Essay, in 



AITE3DIX. 171 

which it is declared, that the assertion here 
combated is made*. " The Roman empire was 
rapidly on the decline when Nero himself 
became a buffoon and a comedian, and while 
the Grecians were relaxing the nerves of their 
strength by these effeminate amusements, for 
which their luxury and idleness gave them a 
taste, they were gradually unfolding the gates 
of their city to Philip of Macedon." Now if 
this statement agree with the truth : if by lux- 
ury and idleness the people were led to the 
Theatre as a principal source of gratification; 
and if the theatre operated as a powerful instru- 
ment in spreading effeminacy, and all its train 
of national evils, both at Greece and Rome, I 
am not persuaded, that an assertion founded 
on fact, and which is most legibly inscribed 
on the annals of their history ought to be 
retracted: nor do I believe that the instance 
of the modern French has any weight in the ar- 
gument. May I be permitted to ask this writer 
what were the moral causes which led to the 
subjugation of Greece? and what was it that 
tended more than any thing besides to in- 
crease their influence? I refer him and the 
reader to that section in the Preface of Rollings 
Ancient History, entitled, " Passion for the re- 

* Page 18j secand edition 



3 73 APPENDIX. 

presensations of the Theatre one of the princi- 
pal causes of the degeneracy and corruption of 
the Athenian state." I imagine the reasoning 
and the facts there stated will even shock the 
confidence of an Annual Reviewer; and he will 
find that I was not mistaken, when I solemnly and 
nnblushingly cried out, " Standing on the base 
of truth, I point to the column of history." As 
some stress is laid on the instance of the modern 
French, to prove that a passion for the Theatre 
does not emasculate and render a people effe- 
minate, though perhaps by some it may be con- 
sidered as unnecessary, I will yet make some 
remarks on the subject. And I observe, that the 
circumstances of the modern French are very 
different from those of Greece and Rome when 
the Theatre contributed so awfully to their de- 
generacy and ruin. The military spirit, and the 
constant dangers to which France has been ex- 
posed, have operated .as a most powerful check 
upon the Stage. It has not yet made them 
cowards ; they have had no leisure to be idle. 
But the Theatre has not been entirely without 
a pernicious influence even in France. The 
rulers, during the revolution, were skilful adepts 
in the art of corruption ; they knew that it was 
necessary to corrupt before they could enslave: 
they therefore opened an unexampled number 



APPENDIX* 173 

of Theatres, and so reduced the price of admis- 
sion as almost to emulate the gratuitous admis- 
sion of the* Athenian populace in the time of 
Pericles; and while their fellow citizens were 
dragged by hundreds to the guillotine, they 
could behold the horrors of the scene with 
stupid insensibility, and leave the spectacle 
of biood to be convulsed with laughter by the 
fictitious exhibitions of pantomimical buffoons. 
And is it no evidence of effeminacy and cowardice, 
when a people, who, but a few years before, 
made the most noble struggles for liberty, now 
tamely submit to the absolute yoke of a proud 
usurper. Let tranquility once more visit the 
continent of Europe: let Buonaparte and his 
legions return to enjoy the luxuries of the capi- 
tal; with the spoils of conquered nations let 
them sit down to gratify their taste, and study 
the arts of refinement, and in a very few 
years the Theatre of France will complete what 
all Europe has combined its forces to accom- 
plish in vain* A war of extermination com- 
menced against France, roused her from that 
stupor which threatened death ; healed those civil 
discords which seemed to hasten its approach ; 
broke the charm of those effeminate amusements 
which allured her to destruction, and roused a 
military spirit which has produced an army in 
13 



J74 APPENDIX, 

the heart of Europe, which has hurled down 
the thrones on the continent, and which may, 
ere long, disorganize and destroy the poli- 
tical systems of the whole civilized world. By 
this combination to ruin them, the effeminacy 
of the French people received a mighty check. 
But if ever amusement and frivolity again be- 
come their business, (and luxury and peace will 
have a tendency to hasten the event) France will 
fall from her mighty eminence, and tremble in 
her turn at the puny nations she now laughs to 
scorn. It is therefore strikingly evident, that 
the instance of the modern French has no weight 
in the argument, against the effeminate influence 
of the Theatre, but in some respects furnishes a 
proof that the Stage does produce effeminacy, 
and is a sort of silken lining to the yoke of slavery, 
or rather a sweet ingredient which renders the 
bitter draught less unpalatable. 

The manner in which this advocate of the 
Stage dismisses the subject in dispute, and under 
the moral causes of effeminacy, levels an attack 
upon Christianity, is almost too contemptible to 
deserve regard. That it is Christianity he repro- 
bates, and not the Puritanic Methodists, is evi- 
dent. The peculiarities of Methodism, whatever 
^hey may be, he has not noticed, but the lessons 
taught most expressly and unequivocally by 



APPENDIX. 173 

Jesus Christ himself, he has ridiculed and con- 
temned. The glorious Teacher and Founder of 
our religion advised that men should be enured 
to what are here contemptuously called the vir- 
tues of women, and enjoined that they should 
subdue anger and resentment; that they should 
cultivate patience and content. The Christian 
Lav/giver really, and the Puritanic Methodists 
ostensibly, are censured for those moral quali- 
ties, which more than any thing besides distin- 
guish the Gospel from every mere human 
system. And he who said " Avenge not your-- 
selVes," who commanded " Love your -enemies,'' 
and who prayed for his murderers — " Father for- 
give them, for they know not what they do/' is 
represented as an enemy to mankind, the mis- 
chievous tendency of whose doctrines must dimi- 
nish the mass of national bravery ; and his faith- 
ful followers who imbibe the spirit of his religion, 
and act under its powerful influence, are stigma- 
tized as " Puritanic Methodists." But Chris- 
tianity smiles at the censures of a man whose 
diminutive greatnes is composed of anger, resent- 
ment, and courage, who can only be brave when 
he is angry, and active when his lips quiver with 
revenge; in whose vocabulary self-denial is asceti- 
tism, magnanimity folly, Christian benevolence 
w eakness, patience and contentment the virtue 
I 4 



176 ^ APPENDIX. 

of women. This advocate of the Stage, when 
he discloses the moral principles of his heart, 
proves with resistless evidence its antichristian 
tendency, and he is too much of a theatrical 
fanatic, properly to estimate the value of the 
.Christian character. 

What is courage when it is a passion instead 
of a principle, when it cannot exist but in the 
company of anger and resentment, and what are 
all the active virtues without the passive graces 
©f Christianity. Christianity, and Christianity 
alone can perfect the human character, and there 
is no virtue of Christianity, which can be injurious 
to the general or individual interests of mankind. 
Does the Gospel make men inactive and effe- 
minate, because it teaches them to deny ungod- 
liness, and worldly lusts, and must it therefore be 
an enemy to human kind? To decide upon the 
value and importance of the moral principles of 
the Christian religion, it is only necessary that we 
should view the character of its great and glori- 
ous author. Without anger, without resentment, 
with "All the virtues of women," he was actively 
benevolent, he constantly went about doing good ; 
benevolence, not anger, not resentment inspired 
him with courage; but then it was a harmless 
courage, by it he coolly and deliberately exposed 
himself to the most imminent perils, but he 



APPENDIX. 177 

injured not a human being. His courage bore 
upon it the marks of real greatness. He contended 
with the vices, the prejudices, and opinions of 
men ; and he bestowed blessings upon them in 
spite of themselves. And when his activity and 
zeal involved him in danger, exposed him to the 
malice of wicked men, he exhibited something 
more noble than anger, more dignified than re- 
venge. Rousseau a more ingenuous unbeliever 
than this cowardly critic while he openly declared 
that he could not believe the Gospel, avowed that 
" The death of Jesus was the death of a God;" 
he contemplated it with admiration, and joined 
the centurion in his testimony/' Verily this is the 
Son of God." If the virtues, which Jesus dis- 
played on the cross, and which he exhibited 
in various trying situations during his life, are the 
virtues of women, women deserve our homage, 
and we need not wonder that they captivate all 
hearts; but I believe there will be found in this 
concession to the fair sex more gallantry than 
good sense. This would be a happy world if 
both sexes were emulous to excel in these god- 
like virtues; it is not for a human imagination to 
conceive a scene of more perfect bliss than a com- 
munity wholly Christian in which every heart 
overflows with benevolence, every individual is 
actually and constantly employed in the cause of 
I 5 



178 APPENDIX. 

goodness, and all esteeming others better than 
themselves. A community where anger and 
resentment are unknown, and where the unity of 
the Spirit is maintained in the bond of peace. 
Let the world look on such a scene till it resembles 
what it view's. 

But it seems, these are the moral principles 
which are propagated by the Puritanic Methodists. 
Glorious distinction ! Christianity has not then in 
anger forsaken this ungrateful world ; despised 
puritanic methodists, happy for mankind she has 
taken up her abode with you ! Go on then with 
a noble courage, disseminate the principles which 
the Son of God came down from heaven to exem- 
plify, and in defence of which he bled and died. 
But why, let me ask, are all real Christians, who 
are consistent enough to believe that the New 
Testament is an infallible standard of Christian 
doctrine and practice, and who, therefore, bow to 
us decision and conform to is injunctions, why 
are all such to be stigmatized with opprobrious 
epithets? and why did not this enemy of the 
Gospel of Christ, boldly avow his infidelity ? why 
should he shield himself in an attack on the vitals 
of Christianity, by insinuating that he only 
levelled his malice against a sect, who, for what- 
ever reason, are despised raid laughed at by the 
world? To answer these questions would lead me 



APPENDIX. 179 

into a wide field of discussion ; the conscience of 
the Reviewer, and all who imitate him, can best 
account for this strange injustice. 

In this age of abounding infidelity, I confess I 
am a little surprised that a writeiyvvho is evidently 
a despiser of the Christian religion should be 
ashamed to avow it, but when I remember that 
some courage even now is necessary to enable a 
man unblushingly to withstand the reproaches of 
conscience, and the indignation of the good and 
wise, and that this critic can only be courageous 
when he is angry, my surprize yields to pity 
that a man should love a cause which he is afraid 
openly to espouse^ and that his courage should 
fail him at the moment, and on an occasion when 
the want of it must brand him with the meanness 
of cowardice, and expose the cause he would 
thus sneakingly serve to contempt. We may 
indeed make for him this excuse, that he perhaps 
imagined by this mode of procedure, more effec- 
tually and with little expense of intellectual- 
labour to give a deadly thrust at the religion of 
Jesus. It probably occurred to him that stigma- 
tizing doctrines and principles with the odious 
name of Methodism was a certain and short way 
of covering them with infamy : that he could 
laugh at a Methodist with much more ease and 
with much less danger than he could invalidate ' 
I Q 



180 APPENDIX. 

the truth and excellence of Christianity; and 
why should a man waste his time and his efforts 
by a long course of tedious reasonings when 
one word will produce all the desired effect. 
Here I cannot refrain quoting an appropriate 
passage from Foster's Essays. " Whenever a grave 
formalist feels it his duty to sneer at those ope- 
rations of religion on the passions which he has 
never felt, he has only to call them methodistical; 
and notwithstanding that the word is both so 
trite and so vague, he feels as if he had uttered a 
good pungent thing. There is a satiric smartness 
in the word, though there be none in the man. 
In default of keen faculty in the mind, it is 
delightful thus to find something that will do a& 
well ready bottled up in odd terms. It is not 
less convenient to a profligate, or a coxcomb, 
whose propriety of character is to be supported 
by laughing indiscriminately at religion in every 
form ; the one to evince that his courage is not 
sapped by conscience, the other to make the 
best advantage of his instinct of catching at 
irnpiety as a substitute for sense. The w T ord 
methodism so readily sets aside all religion as 
superstitious folly, that they pronounce it with 
an air as if no more needed to be said. Such 
terms have a pleasant facility of throwing the 
Flatter in question to scorn without any trouble 



APPENDIX, 181 

of making a definite, intelligible charge of extra- 
vagance or delusion, and attempting to prove it." 

Before I dismiss the subject of religion, I will 
notice the remarks which the chapter on the 
anti-christian tendency of the Stage has produced 
from the Reviewer. 

" Here comes out the secret cause of our 
author's antipathy to the Theatre, it retards 
forsooth the progress of a fanatical sect. Observe 
what sort of beings grow up under their mis- 
chievous discipline. The men are spiritless and 
cunning ; the women want the amenity of bene- 
volence, all are austere, anxious, shy, melancholy, 
speaking with a slothful whine, and with few ra- 
diations of intelligence. Without being aware of 
the blasphemous impiety and more than atheistic 
profaneness of such an opinion, they think and 
teach of God as if he had a dislike to the happi- 
ness of his creatures. Pitiable mistakers of 
the .eternal interest which you affect to have at 
heart; O learn while it is yet time that to enjoy 
is to obey, and that habitually to diffuse happiness 
is alone to deserve perpetual existence.' 5 After 
this raving, this phrensy, I would give the advice 
ofDamasippus to my disordered Critic. 



u Naviget Anticyram."- 



To assert the paramount claims of the Christian 



182- APPENDIX*- 

lawgiver, to exhibit Christianity as^ its features 
are pourtrayed in the New Testament, is, in the 
estimation of this Reviewer, to advocate the 
cause of a sect, and of a sect whose tenets accor- 
ding to his representation are the most forbidding*, 
from which the heart revolts, and which are as 
repugnant to my feelings, as unsophisticated 
Christianity is to the feelings of my opponent. 
In the chapter on the antichristian tendency of 
the Stage, I have only maintained the morality 
of the Gospel; I have not even proposed what 
are called its dogmas, I have confined myself 
to its practical tendency, and to a display of 
those virtues which are cordially embraced by 
almostall the various sects and parties into which 
the Christian world is divided. I have asserted 
that the morality of the Stage has always been a ; 
morality diametrically opposite to that of the 
Gospel, and this I have proved from the New 
Testament, and from a. view of the popular 
theatrical virtues. No ingenuity could discover 
from what I had written, that I was the advocate 
of any sect: mine is the sectarianism of Christi- 
anity, and my fanaticism, conviction from resist- 
less evidence that the Gospel is divine, and that it 
demandst he homage of the heart. If a fair, 
estimate could be made, I believe it would 
be found that my opponent is the greater: 



APPENDIX. 183 

fanatic. He presumes where he ought to 
tremble, he talks of perpetual existance, while 
he speaks contemptuously of the only revelation 
which brings immortality to light. He calls 
Christian virtues, the virtues of women, and 
represents the New Testament as forming a cha- 
racter misanthropic, and spiritless, a character 
without benevolence, and without enjoyment; 
he ranges himself with the enemies of Christi- 
anity, and would enter into the presence of the 
eternal Judge, w r ould plunge into a world of 
everlasting retribution with a lie in his right 
hand. I have always considered the sect of 
unbelievers as the most fanatical and the most 
misanthropic. If fanaticism be a substitute for 
reason, and an enemy to it, these are the men who 
are under its shocking influence. Evidence as 
clear as the noon-day sun their passions will not 
allow them to discern, and claims of an immortal 
interest are superceded by the vanities of the 
passing hour. And where can there be found in 
the coldest human bosom misanthropy more 
forbidding than that which, under the pretence of 
philosophy, teaches us to renounce all future hope, 
and robs us of our guide and charter for eternity. 
And what are all the enjoymentsof this mischiev- 
ous sect, " To enjoy (say they] is to obey," to 
gratify their passions and their depraved desires ; 



184 APPENDIX.^ 

to listen to every claim of folly, and not to starve 
a single wish, which rises in the bosom, however 
vicious; this they call enjoyment, and thus to- 
enjoy is to obey. How much more refined, exalted, 
and durable the happiness of a sincere Christian. 
He knows it is decreed, by the ruler of man, 
that the present should be a state of discipline : 
he feels that he has passions which he must 
regulate; temptations which he must resist; 
depravity which he must subdue- He believes 
that our infinitely kind Benefactor has blended 
duty and enjoyment together; that he has for- 
bidden only what would injure, and enjoined 
what would make us happy, and he reverses 
the infidel maxim. He is persuaded that to 
obey U to enjoy. Who then is the mistaker 
of the immortal interest of the imperishable 
soul? The Christian or the unbeliever, — the 
friend of the Gospel, p or its adversary. Under 
your, mischievous discipline ye apostles of 
infidelity, men grow up enemies of God, and 
enemies to their species. Your writings diffuse 
misery, whenever they misrepresent religion, or 
traduce the characters of its friends, I at least 
am able flatly to contradict and to expose the 
violations of truth contained in the description 
of those, who, it is said, grow up under the mis- 
chievous discipline of the sect to which I belong. 



APPENDIX, 185 

We are neither destitute of spirit nor courage; 
we dare avow our sentiments in the face of an 
opposing world; we dare to repel the attacks 
of insolence, and to chastize the temerity 
of ignorance; we also can be benevolent, we can 
pity a Reviewer when he laughs at religion, and 
while we detest the crime, we can pardon the 
criminal, and give him a brother's interest in our 
hearts. 

The last thing which I shall notice in this 
extraordinary Critique is the arrogant style in 
which the Reviewer calls upon me to retract an 
assertion which is to be found in the 24th. page 
of the Essay,namely, " That aTheatre much more 
pure than any which modern Europe ever knew 
wase stablished at ancient Athens/ 9 But if I can 
fix on any period when this was the case, my 
point is established and in my turn I may call 
upon the Reviewer to retract his arrogant and 
unfounded censures, and to acknowledge that at 
least he is quite as ignorant as the Author of the 
Essay on the Stage. If we look at the Theatre 
of Greece in its first rise to eminence, and during 
the most splendid period of its history from 
the time of Eschylus to the commencement of 
the dramatic reign of Aristophanes, we shall be 
struck with its purity and its dignity, and in vain 
shall we search in the modern world and in Christ 



186 APPENDIX. 

tian countries for a Theatre which inculcates a 
morality so unexceptionable, sofree from impiety 
and licentiousness. That the Grecian Stage 
soon and rapidly degenerated, only adds weight- 
to the arguments which are advanced against 
the Theatre. It is sufficient for my purpose to 
prove that the Grecian Stage, though not entirely 
immaculate,was much more pure than any which 
has appeared in modern Europe. And there 
was a period in the Athenian history, when 
however the poets were disposed, the audience 
would not endure the most distant approaches* 
to profaneness, obscenity, and vice. " One cannot 
(says Rollin,) sufficiently admire the extreme 
delicacy expressed by the Athenian audience oil; 
certain occasions, and their solicitude to preserve 
the reverence due to morality, virtue, decency, 
and justice. It is surprising to observe the 
warmth with which they unanimously reproved 
whatever seemed inconsistent with them, and 
called the poet to an account for it, notwithstand- 
ing his having the best-founded excuse in giving 
such sentiments only to persons notoriously 
vicious, and actuated by the most unjust 
passions/' And it was not till the very lowest 
of the people were gratuitously admitted to the 
enjoyment of theatrical exhibitions, that the 
comic poet dared to indulge in low. buffoonery. 



APPENDIX. 187 

and gross obscenity. Horace indeed expressly 
declares, that the ancient comedy was subse- 
quent to the time of Eschylus * ; and if the 
public mind at that time was so tenacious, so 
delicately alive to a sense t of propriety, and so 
disposed to reprobate every thing that had the 
least appearance of immorality, some interval 
must have taken place before that taste could have 
been so shockingly depraved, as to banish a com- 
pany of comedians because their scenes were not 
grossly comic enough. 

But that the taste of the people did thus de- 
generate, that the great tragic poets could not 
retain their influence, and exclude impure and 
disgusting comedy from the Grecian Theatre is a 
strong an irresistible proof, that the best regulated 
Stage is a very unsafe, uncertain, and inefficient 
school, both of morality and happiness. 

Having now established what I intended, 
having proved that with splendid, and even im- 
posing talents this annual Reviewer is strangely 
unqualified to fill the chair of criticism, and 
having shewn how little its warmest advocates 
can produce in favour of the Stage. I now con- 
clude intreating my Critic to review his own 
performance, to retract his false assertions, to 
blush at his palpable contradictions, and to weep 

* Successit vetus his comsedia nou suia muita laude. 



188 APPENDIX* 

with the bitter tears of repentance over that 
impiety which would wrest from the Christian 
his consolations and his hopes, and shroud the 
world in moial darkness. 



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